Five Minutes
by Laurelin the Pale
Summary: Set during and after Reichenbach. Molly helps Sherlock fake his death, but what is she willing to do to bring him back? What is she willing to sacrifice personally to clear his name and end Moriarty for good? Warnings will be posted before appropriate M-rated chapters. Early Johnlolly, late Sherlolly.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"What's next?" Molly asked, closing the heavy metal drawer containing the body of a homeless man dressed in Sherlock's bloody clothing and sporting a vicious head injury she was glad Sherlock had inflicted himself. His plan was simple but elegant, yet there were still ways it could go horribly wrong. Ways she was certain Sherlock had systematically worked through. He had made half a dozen phone calls, and Molly had retrieved four packages delivered through the hospital's old coal chute courtesy of Sherlock's homeless network, and one from a businessman in a three thousand Euro Italian suit. Sherlock was apparently unwilling to share the nature of the contents of those parcels with her.

Sherlock had either not heard her question, or he chose not to answer. Molly sighed. By now, she should be used him ignoring her. He was sitting on the floor, his back to the wall, with his knees pulled up and elbows resting on them. His fingers were steepled underneath his chin as he stared straight ahead. Sherlock was a million miles away in his mind. Molly had seen him like this more times than she could count, and she silently wished she could join him there someday, wherever he was.

She washed her hands slowly, then sat down quietly next to him, savoring the rare opportunity just to stare at him, to burn the image of him into her mind. It could be a very long time before she saw him again. It might be never. He could die on that rooftop in a matter of hours or he would leave to preserve his secret and never come back for her. The tears in her eyes silently rolled down her cheeks, and she turned away from him to stare at the wall in front of them. Molly wondered when she'd become accustomed to being ignored by him.

Her chest ached as she remembered what he had said to her only a few hours ago. That he needed her. That she mattered to him. How she had wanted to hear those words from Sherlock. How she had wanted him to wrap her in his strong arms, pull her against his chest, and whisper his need for her. He would hold her head between his hands, gently brush his lips against hers, and then deepen the kiss as he finally let his emotions and his hunger for her loose.

The sound of her tears dropping down onto her lab coat stirred her slightly from her fantasy. When Sherlock came back from his mental hideaway, he would need her to be completely in the present and ready to work. He'd need her to understand that what he meant was that he needed her _skills_, not _her_. Those few words of acknowledgement were more praise than she'd ever received from him and she realized that it must have cost him emotionally to say them.

Molly reached up to wipe her cheek, but warm, slightly calloused fingers were there first. She startled and looked at Sherlock with wide eyes, pulling back slightly, knowing how he usually avoided physical contact. His fingers followed her movement away, brushing away her tears, and she involuntarily closed her eyes, trying so hard to remember every nuance of his touch. She wanted to remember every detail when he was gone.

"Why are you crying, Molly?" He asked, finally lowering his hands and replacing them under his chin, studying her face.

"Sherlock…" She tried to pull herself together and push those desires back down deep inside of her. There was no use crying over what she couldn't have. It didn't matter that she really couldn't look at another man with any sort of real desire since she'd met him.

Sherlock didn't move, or offer her a way out of the question. His ice-blue eyes held hers until she had to look away. It was enough that she wore her heart on her sleeve around him, it hurt too much to have him peer into her soul. She hesitated before softly saying, "Please don't ask me questions you already know the answers to. I already know you think I'm pathetic, please don't make me feel worse. I will still help you and keep your secrets, no matter what."

"Molly," he said as she moved to stand, "I have never considered you pathetic. Ever. And I'm… sorry if I made you feel that way. It was never my intention." Sherlock turned to look up at her from his place on the floor. Was it regret that played across his face momentarily, Molly wondered?

She inched closer to him, trying to find the edge of his personal space, which was strange because he had had no qualms about invading hers a few moments ago. She reached out tentatively to touch his hair, as she had wanted to for so long. He didn't pull away when she gently brushed his temple with her fingertips.

"I know. I know you didn't intend to hurt me. But the truth often hurts, Sherlock. I know how much you value the truth, and since you are leaving m… since you are leaving, I want you to know that I do not blame you. It's who you are, and I would never ask you to change."

He leaned in to her touch, slightly, and blinked for just a fraction of a second longer than necessarily. If he hadn't taught her so well, she might have missed it. He was fighting for control of his emotions, replaying many events in his life, unearthing those regrets that he had previously not allowed himself to see. Why now? He would either die in a few short hours, or suffer the death of the essence of his life, his work, his success, his… pride. Those were what he truly valued, but they were not worth the death of the people who had made his success possible. Where would he be without John, Mycroft, Lestrade, and especially Molly? He, the great Sherlock Holmes, did deserve to die. They did not.

While others questioned everything he had ever done, only Molly had never wavered in her support, never stopped being there when he needed her. Mycroft felt he needed a nanny to monitor his "disgraceful behavior," Lestrade had always been embarrassed that his department couldn't solve these cases without help, and even John had doubts about his integrity and his sanity. But Molly? Molly rarely complained about him or asked him to conform to social norms, and she willingly gave to him everything he had ever asked her for. She came in early for him, worked through the night with him, gave him access to her lab and the bodies he needed for his experiments; things that could have caused her to lose her medical license and her livelihood, if not her freedom. For him. He'd taken her for granted, he saw that now.

She treated him like a man, not a freak of human nature. It was wrong that he had left her pining for him, unwilling to look seriously at another man. At the same time, he felt privileged. She expected nothing in return for her unreserved kindness. But he was keeping her from happiness in the boring, mundane world. Unlike him, she could be satisfied there. If he were out of the way.

Sherlock was startled when her soft, delicate finger wiped away the tear from the side of his face. He looked up at her with desperation, and Molly thought she saw a hint of fear. She moved up to her knees, by his side, but avoiding his eyes so he would not have to live with the knowledge that she saw him in a rare moment of despair. She leaned towards him, waiting for him to pull away, but letting him know that she was there for him, to be whatever he needed her to be.

_What could I possibly need from you?_ He'd been so callous. This was what she'd been offering him all along, he thought sadly. He leaned towards her, her arms carefully sliding around his shoulders, as he forced himself to relax into her embrace. He told himself it was a kindness to her, to leave her with a taste of what he had so long denied her, to ease her mind before he left her, but he had to admit it may have more than that.

"It's okay, Sherlock. I'll never tell." She stroked his hair, whispering to him. "I'm here for you. For just five minutes, Sherlock, you don't have to be strong, just this once. I won't tell anyone."

His resolve snapped, and the enormity of what he was going to do crashed down onto him. The sword of Damocles had been held above his head for so long, and now he must lie down beneath it and cut the thread. Whether his plan worked or not, he was going to lose everything and everyone, including Molly. He was barely able to keep his shoulders from shaking as he surrendered to her arms, collapsing against her. Only with her could he welcome another's touch. And he would have to leave her forever.

Molly held him while he wept silently for several minutes, his face hidden from her view, but she wiped away his hot tears, memorizing the feel of his skin, his smell, the softness of his shirt and the rougher tweed of his signature coat. She whispered quiet words of comfort to him until he finally stilled, and she closed her eyes to pray this closeness wouldn't end.

Sherlock raised his hands and gently pulled her hand away from him, and Molly could feel his walls rebuilding. As he sat up, facing away from her, Sherlock pressed the gentlest of kisses over the pulse point in her wrist, before letting her go. He moved a foot away from her, and Molly dropped her arms to her sides, trying to keep her own reactions in check. He needed her to be strong. Sherlock needed _her. _

Facing away from her, he stood and gathered himself to his full height. "Molly, I can never be what you want, what you need." He pulled his collar up and buttoned the coat. "Once I am gone…"

"Don't. Sherlock don't," Molly interrupted. "Don't say it. Don't make me feel guilty when I can't fulfill your last request of me." Her voice got quieter. "Please, Sherlock."

She saw him nod once, then step out into the deserted hallway to make a call. It was over as quickly as it began. She knew there would be no repeat performance, no further cracks in his armor.

As he hadn't given her any other immediate instructions, Molly set about scrubbing down the morgue table she would use when Sherlock's "body" came in. The autoinjector with the antidote to the toxin Sherlock would give himself before his "death" was still in the pocket of her lab coat, but she checked it nearly every minute. Without it, Sherlock could die for real. There was a fine line between appearing dead to trained medical personnel, and actually being dead. His pulse would be very weak, barely palpable under normal circumstances, completely hidden by the thin prosthetics he placed over his pulse points. His breathing would be shallow and infrequent, risking stroke, heart arrhythmia, or outright death from hypoxia. She had moved an entire crash cart into the morgue on the pretense of investigating a death from the ICU, as well as a veritable pharmacy of other medications.

If Sherlock came to her alive, and died here, under her care, she would never forgive herself. She had pleaded with him to let John in on the secret. She needed John's skills in case something went wrong. He had years of trauma and critical care experience that would be invaluable in a medical emergency, but Sherlock had just looked at her and very calmly told her "no." She knew better than to argue with him at that point. "Whether I die here," Sherlock pointed to the stainless steel morgue table, "or up there, you, John, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson will be safe. John's grief will be more convincing if it is real. His acting skills are poor, at best."

"What about mine?" Molly had asked him.

"Need I say the reason?"

Molly shook her head and tried to look anywhere except at his eyes. "No. You are right, as always." She would grieve nearly equally for his death as she would grieve him leaving.

"Don't ask questions you already know the answers to," he said, lighting up his third cigarette in a row and taking a deep drag. At least he'd allowed her to turn on the fume hood to evacuate the smoke. Given the circumstances, she didn't even bother admonishing him for the habit.

As she triple checked all of her equipment, every tick of the clock weighed heavily on her mind. She could suddenly feel Sherlock's eyes on her. She didn't dare turn around. If she did, he would surely tell her it was time for him to leave.

His quiet footsteps advanced on her, but she kept her gaze downward, glued to an invisible speck of dirt on the table. One that she couldn't get to come out, no matter how hard she scrubbed.

"Molly, look at me," he said in that voice that left her no choice but to obey, as she always did. She repeated the mantra in her head. _I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry. _She met his gaze and was momentary lost in the blue of his eyes. "I have seven minutes. I have left detailed instructions for you. I am confident in your ability to proceed from here. Do not blame yourself for any of this, ever, no matter the outcome. This is of my doing, and mine alone. Do you understand?"

She nodded her head and tried to turn back to checking her equipment again. Sherlock's fingers touched her chin, raising her head so that she had to look in his eyes once more. There were days when she did everything she could to steal a glance at his handsome face but now she could hardly bear the scrutiny.

His voice gentled. "When I go, you will need to find a way to focus. I need you to be at your peak of performance."

She nodded twice, but her nerves made her stammer. "I…I won't disappoint you."

Since Sherlock didn't really smile, it was hard for her to say if he was pleased, but some of the tension released from his eyebrows.

"You have never disappointed me. I don't expect you to start now." She just nodded, and his hand fell away from her chin. She whimpered slightly at the loss of contact. Sherlock turned away from her, but he didn't walk away. He waited.

"Sherlock?" Molly asked timidly.

"Molly." It was less of an answer than a statement.

"I have tried very hard to never ask anything of you."

Sherlock closed his eyes and steadied his voice. "Ask now. You may not have another chance."

The logical part of Molly's brain knew why he was doing this. Sherlock was placating her so she would fulfill her part in his plan when he was gone. Just like he flattered her whenever he wanted something. She should have hated him for it, but she craved those scarce scraps of attention. This was Sherlock, and he was offering to play her game, just this once, for the last free minutes they would have together before he risked everything. He was right, she would mourn him, even if he were gone but still alive. No one would know she helped him. She didn't care about his motives; she'd always known what kind of man he was.

"I understand if you say no, if you…can't." He still hadn't turned to face her, but he hadn't shut her down. "Sherlock, will you hold me? Just for five minutes? Let me pretend that it means something to you? Let me pretend that you care about me as a woman? I know it won't be real for you. That's okay. Nevermind….I don't expect you to…" He cut her off by turning around and wrapping his arms around her, letting her feel his strength as he pulled her tightly against him. He didn't even flinch as she slid her arms up his back, under his coat, letting her trace the lean muscles in his back.

Sherlock rested his chin on top of her head. Her hair smelled like peaches, and it was so much softer than he'd imagined. He rubbed his cheek against her hair, relishing the new sensation. She felt so fragile as he held her against him, and he felt an undeniable urge to protect her. Caring was weakness, emotion was weakness, friendship was weakness, but he had less than thirty minutes to live. Moriarty had already exposed all of Sherlock's flaws. What was one more? Sherlock found himself thinking that Molly made it easier to do what he had to, to face Moriarty, to disgrace himself in the eyes of all those who had once respected his intellect. Only she would know the truth. He trusted her to keep his secrets.

Their five minutes passed in silence while she listened to his heartbeat, steady and slow. It confirmed for her that Sherlock did this because it was a means to an end, not because he wanted intimacy with her, but before last night, she could not have even imagined he'd give her permission to touch him, much less hold him. It was more than she'd ever expected and it had to be enough. He was right, as always. This would get her through the bad times to come, but she doubted that he knew how it broke her heart.

Precisely as the minute hand hit three o'clock, Sherlock pulled away and lowered his arms to his sides. He walked briskly out of the morgue and up the disused stairwell in the back of the building, never looking back at Molly, and without so much as a word.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Molly watched him fall from the tiny window near the ceiling of her basement office. On cue, the homeless man that had been sitting next to the trashcan rushed over to cut the thin wire attached to Sherlock's ankle, allowing it to retract out of sight. She could see the dark rivers of blood winding away from him, hoping desperately it was from the concealed packets she had given him, and not fresh from his veins.

Molly had to look away when she saw John rushing to Sherlock's side, the agony plainly written on his face. A hospital physician would reach Sherlock within thirty seconds, he had said. Upon seeing the height of the fall, the brain matter in his hair, and the utter lack of any signs of life, he would be pronounced dead at the scene. They would know there was no hope of survival from that height, and bring him to her.

A larger crowd had gathered, as Sherlock expected given the time of day, and hospital personnel would feel obligated to remove him from the sidewalk as quickly as possible to minimize the opportunities for photographs, and therefore the questions about how someone could have gained access to the roof of St. Barts for the purpose of committing suicide. John, in his grief, would be kept away from Sherlock's body on the street, and she would provide the needed confirmation to Lestrade that Sherlock Holmes was dead. She hoped that she would be lying.

His gurney appeared in the morgue within two minutes, a white sheet draped over his very still form, while hospital security kept the curious from getting anywhere close to the hospital basement. "I'm sorry, Dr. Hooper," a young orderly said to her, placing his hand gently on her back. "I understand you knew him."

"Who?" Molly looked up from the paperwork on her desk, appearing confused.

"Sherlock Holmes. A man outside ID'ed him. He committed suicide just now. Jumped right off the roof of the hospital, he did. Docs upstairs pronounced him." Molly rushed over, but couldn't pull back the sheet. "You want me to ask them to call someone else in? You still have to sign for him, but I'm sure they could…"

"No, no, NO!" she yelled at him, lifting up the sheet momentarily to confirm his identity. She took three deep breaths. "I'm sorry, Martin, I'm sorry. I should be the one. I need to take care of him. He wouldn't want anyone else seeing him so…" She searched for the word while she rested her hand on his still-covered form, and she said quietly, "broken."

"I understand," the man said. "If you need anything…" He was already backing up towards the door.

"Can you give me a few moments alone with him, please. Keep everyone out, just until I've said my goodbyes, then I'll prep him for viewing." She touched the thick blood that seeped into the sheet near his head. "I need to clean him up. He… he wouldn't want anyone to see him like this."

Martin was already retreating out the door, eager to get away before she started crying. "I'll make sure you have some privacy," he said as closed the door behind him. Molly bolted the door, ran back to Sherlock, and pulled the sheet off. He looked terrible. His face was swollen and bloodied, his limbs arranged haphazardly on the gurney. She pulled the autoinjector out of her pocket and slammed it against Sherlock's thigh, praying it worked quickly.

She peeled back the prosthetic covering his right carotid artery, and felt for a pulse. It was very faint, and slow, but it was there, but she couldn't be sure if he was breathing. He had two to three minutes before she'd know if the antidote worked, but in the meantime, he needed oxygen. She pulled the crash cart closer and placed the ambu bag over his nose and mouth, and giving him slow deep breaths, as his heart sped up and his pulse strengthened.

Sherlock coughed once and his eyes fluttered open, but he couldn't focus. He had a terrible headache, it hurt to breathe, and he felt like he was suffocating. All at once, the pressure on his nose and mouth lifted, and he took a deep shuttering breath. He smelled peaches, and saw Molly's blurry face suspended above him. He reached up to touch her, to reassure himself she was real.

"Don't move, Sherlock." Timid Molly was gone. "You need to lie still until I know the extent of your injuries." She was already moving the x-ray machine into position over him. "Do you understand me?" Molly's tone commanded an answer from him.

"Yes," he said, a quarter smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Molly was full of surprises today. He relaxed back, pushed the pain away from his mind, and let her work. While x-rays of nearly his whole body developed, Molly ran her fingers across his scalp and face, the concentration on her face clear as she probed his injuries. There was nothing sensual or sexual about her touch, she was completely professional as she opened his shirt and felt along each rib, and down his spine, ignoring the dark purple coloration he had previously applied to mimic his expected injuries. Sherlock watched her face intently as she ordered him about, telling him when to move what, and insisting that he tell her if something hurt.

He remained silent, enjoying the sight of Dr. Molly Hooper scrutinizing the details of his x-rays, and he suddenly wondered why she preferred the company of the dead to living patients. She was more than competent, she was thorough and meticulous. He approved.

"I'm fine, Molly," he said, sitting up on the steel table only momentarily. Molly planted her palm on his chest and pushed him back down.

"You have a concussion, three bruised ribs, and an impacted radial head fracture. I told you not to try to break your fall with elbow locked. But your plan worked. I knew you would survive." She sounded like she was trying to convince herself of that after the fact. Sherlock knew she didn't doubt his intellect or planning. She was just afraid. For him.

"None of those injuries will impair my escape." He tried to sit up again, but found Molly's hand still on his chest, and she was staring at it there, her mind elsewhere. Sherlock waited, watching her for clues as to what she was thinking. She was feeling his heart beat in his chest, he realized, reassuring herself that he was warm and alive.

He covered her hand with his, and pressed her palm against his chest more firmly, and she startled. Molly's self-consciousness and nerves flooded back to her, now that her medical examination was complete, and Sherlock finally saw it for what it really was. He made her uncomfortable. She was attracted to him, craved his attention, all while she feared him laying her desires bare, like he'd done to her at Christmas. She feared he would disapprove of her. Molly looked away from him and tried to pull her hand back, but Sherlock held tight.

"I'm sorry, Molly. I'm sorry for always making you feel inadequate and unnoticed. I'm sorry about Christmas. I have always been a selfish and uncaring man, but you never deserved to be treated so poorly. You are strong, and intelligent," she stopped trying to avoid Sherlock's light blue eyes. "And you are beautiful, Molly Hooper. I owe you everything, but I can give you nothing."

Molly opened her mouth to argue with him, but he sat up and placed a finger over her lips, effectively silencing her. "You have my permission and encouragement to find a man who can appreciate you and love you." He slowly let her go as Molly tried to process what he had said.

"You must have a worse concussion than I thought. The…the… Sherlock Holmes I.. I.. know would never say such a thing to me." She busied herself putting away her supplies, but Sherlock saw her hands shake.

"Sherlock Holmes is dead." He laid back down on the slab and pulled the sheet over his head. "John will be knocking on the door in ten seconds."

Molly pushed the crash cart into the back room, and switched Sherlock's x-rays with pre-selected ones showing far more catastrophic injuries. She had no idea how'd he known, but a knock came on the morgue door right on schedule.

Sherlock pressed the prosthetic back down to cover his carotid artery, and focused himself on lowering his breathing and heart rate.


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you for the reviews and follows! I'll try to post a few chapters every day.

Chapter 3

Molly knew her eyes were already red and puffy but she no longer tried to hold back the tears once she saw John and Greg in the hallway. She was thankful it was just the two of them.

Greg stepped in first and he pulled her into a careful hug. "I'm so sorry, Molly. I know you cared for him." Molly could only nod, because the words would not come, even when she tried. "I'm here for you if you need anything," Greg said kindly, almost paternally, before letting her go.

She looked to John, who was outwardly showing military physician. His posture was straight, his face impassive, and he avoided direct eye contact with her and Greg. Molly walked over to him and spoke to him quietly, knowing how he felt, and how fragile the façade was. "Do you want to see him, John?"

He just nodded, barely glancing at her. "I haven't finished with… Give me a moment," she said, walking over to where Sherlock lay, blocking him from the view of the other two men. She pulled the sheet down to Sherlock's chest, and folded a drape to cover his forehead and hair. John didn't need to see the brain matter in Sherlock's hair, even if it had come from another corpse. It would also shield her documented cause of death from his expert eyes. Sherlock was so still, looking so dead, Molly had to swallow down her panic.

Molly stretched out her hand to John, and he stared down into the pale, bloody face of his best friend. He reached out to rest his right hand on Sherlock's shoulder. "How did he…"

"Head trauma. Instantaneous." Molly said softly. John went to raise the drape she'd placed over Sherlock's head, but Molly was there, holding his hand and redirecting it to his side, where she held it tightly. "Don't look, John. It is bad. Please trust me. You don't want that to be your last memory of him. It will haunt you." She felt the tears well up in her eyes and spill over as she covered Sherlock completely with the sheet and led John out of the cold, impersonal room.

John finally looked at her, as if he were seeing her for the first time since he arrived. He squeezed her hand tighter, before wrapping his other arm around her shoulder. "Molly, I'm so sorry you had to be the one to do this. I know you loved him very much. I am so sorry he couldn't…"

She turned into John's arms as they held each other and cried. She was vaguely aware of Greg stepping out of the room to give them some privacy.

"I know he cared for you too John. He could never tell you, but he valued your friendship deeply. He knew."

They stayed like that, silently holding each other for five minutes, until they heard Greg return and clear his throat. Molly steered John towards the door. "I need to… I need to… finish taking care of him. I want to get him cleaned up, and then I…since it's a homicide… I need to do a post-mor…"

"Suicide," John said softly.

"What?" Molly looked at John, then Greg, waiting for the DI to deny it, but Greg just shook his head.

"He jumped. Willingly. I was on the phone with him when he jumped." John looked utterly broken emotionally.

Molly wrapped her hands around her middle, shaking her head. "He wouldn't do that. He wouldn't."

John reached out to hold Molly's hands between his own. "He jumped. He said his phone call to me was his suicide note. I was outside the hospital when he called. He made me look up at him as he jumped. I saw him. He told me he was killing himself. I'm sorry. I'll tell you what he said, but later. Sherlock needs you now, Molly. Take care of him for me. I'll come back when you are finished, and see you home." John tried to smile at her before he walked out.

Greg handed Molly his card. "My mobile number is on the back. The hospital is trying to get someone to come in to relieve you by nine. Call me when you want to leave, and I'll have a car meet you in the staff garage and take you home. The press is all over the place."

Greg paused at the door. "John said Mycroft called a funeral home. They are coming to get him in an hour. He doesn't need a post-mortem, as we have witnesses and a motive." Molly just stared and the card and nodded. "I'll check on you tomorrow, Molly. But I mean it, call me if you need to talk." He shut the door behind him, and Molly flipped the lock, leaning her back up against the door, trying to steady herself before going back to Sherlock. She didn't know how she was going to say goodbye, or how she was going to go on without him.

But when she returned to the post-mortem room, the sheet was in a pile on the floor, and Sherlock's coat was folded neatly on the table. He was already gone.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Molly kept his coat on her lap as she stared at the death certificate on her desk for an hour before she could bring herself to finish it. The coat smelled of him, and each time she pressed her nose to it and breathed in, she relaxed a little. He'd been tender with her, caring even, when he didn't have to. He had to know she'd do anything for him, even if he barely noticed her most of the time. It was pathetic of her to hang on his every word and glance, but she'd long ago accepted it. You couldn't choose who you loved.

Somehow, she managed to have everything in order by the time they arrived to take "Sherlock's" body away and prep it for burial. Even though she knew it wasn't really Sherlock, she was down to operating on automatic. It had been twenty-four hours since Sherlock first came to her for help, and at least forty hours since she'd slept.

She knew Sherlock slept very little, and often not at all while on a case, but it was only now that she realized why. The exhaustion forced her to focus and allowed her to ignore the crushing pain in her heart. Was that how he could be so detached with everyone, so inconsiderate? She wiped down the tables, finished her filing, and headed for the locker room as soon as her replacement arrived.

She called Greg to take him up on the offer of a ride home and went to her locker for a change of clothes. There, sitting on top of her purse, was a heavy manila envelope two inches thick with her name on it in Sherlock's elegant handwriting. All she could think of for a moment was how he could have placed that inside when it was locked, but then she rested her head against the door of the locker and smiled. Of course he'd be able to bypass a simple combination lock. She wondered how long he'd known the combination, and how many times he'd been through her personal things before today. It was a strange sort of intimacy.

She brushed her fingertips across his fine script, tracing each stroke as it formed her name. She turned it over gently to open it, but there was a smaller note on the flap, which read, "Open when you are home and alone." So it was nothing urgent, then. Nothing she needed to do for him right now. And if she waited, prolonged the investigation of the envelope, she could believe for a little longer that he wasn't gone.

Molly admitted the possibility, even the likelihood, that he was gone from her forever. Even if Sherlock were to clear his name, he would not be able to slip back into his former life. He had lied to his friends, to the DI, and they would always harbor a modicum of doubt. He would have to sacrifice his pride to return, and ask for forgiveness. Such a thing would be the death of what defined him as a man.

A knock at the door brought Molly out of her thoughts. Somehow, she found herself sitting on the floor, clutching the envelope to her chest.

"Molly? It's John. I've come to take you home. Can I come in?" She knelt and stuffed the package into her bag.

"I'm almost ready." She wiped her eyes and grabbed her bag, thankful she had enough room as she shoved Sherlock's coat inside and zipped it.

"You've been in there for at least thirty minutes. Are you okay?" John cracked the door open and peered in. He looked like Hell. He had a five o'clock shadow, dark circles under his eyes, and she didn't need to be a doctor to know that he was as emotionally raw as she was.

"Thank you for escorting me home. You didn't have to. I'm used to going home alone." Her step faltered when she realized how that sounded. "It's not… I didn't… I didn't mean…for that to sound as pitiful as it did. I guess I am, though, since it's true."

John smiled at her, and it reached all the way to his eyes as he drank in the sight of her. "Molly, Molly, Molly. Don't sell yourself short. Any man would be very lucky to be with you. Don't let how he…" John's voice trailed off and his smile faded.

"It's alright. Let's go," Molly managed a weak smile. John didn't need her to make him feel worse.

Greg met them by the car, where she handed him a copy of her report, and he gave the driver her address, and instructions to take Dr. Watson home afterwards. Their shared grief needed no expression, and they passed the ride in silence. When the car pulled up outside of her flat, she saw the apprehension in John's face as the driver asked him for his address.

"John… If you aren't ready to go home, you can stay here tonight. I have a spare room. It will be no trouble." She tugged on the sleeve of his coat and he nodded.

"Are you sure? I don't want to impose." He said the words, but he was a drowning man who had just been thrown a life preserver.

"Come on. Misery loves company." Molly climbed out of the car and John followed, grateful for the opportunity to avoid 221B for a little longer. He wasn't ready to be immersed in everything Sherlock.

Molly put the kettle on and gave John the ten second tour of her flat. It was unpretentious but pleasingly feminine with its muted pastel colors and soft fabrics. It seemed… comfortable. It suited her, John thought. And it was the polar opposite of 221B.

John went to the refrigerator but paused at the handle. "You don't have any eyeballs, or severed heads in here, do you? I just want to be prepared."

Molly looked shocked. "Dear God, no. "Is that where Sherl…" she cleared her throat, "where he kept them?"

John nodded and retrieved the milk, adding a shot to his cup as Molly poured the tea, and added four lumps of sugar. They retreated to the living room and collapsed on the sofa in unison.

After a comfortable silence, both lost in their thoughts, Molly took John's hand tentatively. It was warm, and mildly calloused, and so much larger than hers. He returned the gesture and squeezed her hand firmly.

"What are we going to do now? Without him?" Molly whispered.

"I don't know," John said, transferring her left hand to his, and slid his right arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. She put her head down on his shoulder and closed her eyes, falling asleep within seconds. John couldn't bear to disturb her, so he leaned his head back and closed his eyes, feeling oddly comforted by holding Molly Hooper in his arms.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

John awoke to bright sunlight pouring in from the window and the feel of Molly resettling herself against his chest. During the night, he must have slid downwards, as he was now lying on his side with Molly pressed against him as she slept, her hand resting on his side.

_Sherlock was such a fool to push her away. Now he will never have another chance to be with probably the only woman in the world that could ever love him. Or tolerate him, for that matter._

John tucked a stray lock of hair behind Molly's ear. He'd never had this kind of closeness to a woman in any of his relationships, not really. Maybe that's why they didn't last. While it wasn't sexual, it had a brutal honesty, of the shared feelings about the man they'd lost and the knowledge that the void in their lives would never be filled. She didn't ask him to be strong, or hide how he felt, and he didn't tell her that her love for Sherlock was a stupid, schoolgirl crush. He'd known it was more than that for some time. He suspected Sherlock did as well, but he found that fact to be a means to an end, a way of manipulating Molly to get him access to the bodies, the lab, and her help whenever he saw fit, with no regard for her as a person. It should have bothered her more than it did.

He hadn't realized he was smoothing her hair, or touching her cheek with the backs of his fingers, until she opened her eyes, looked up at him, and bolted upright off of the sofa.

"John! I'm sorry… It's not… I didn't mean…" She tried to press the wrinkles out yesterday's clothes.

"Molly, it's okay. Don't be embarrassed. We were both exhausted and we fell asleep. It happens." John stood as well. "I'll make tea and you can freshen up. You'll feel better after a shower and some food." He knew it was a lie, there was no feeling better from this, but that's what he'd always told the other members of a soldier's unit when one of them died. Maybe it had placebo value if he said it convincingly. God knew he'd said it more times than he wanted to count.

Molly bit her lower lip and nodded, retreating to a scalding hot shower where she could pretend that those weren't tears running down her face. Twenty minutes later, she emerged in her favorite jeans and a cashmere sweater that her brother gave her for Christmas last year, feeling only marginally better as John handed her a cup of tea.

"Four sugars, just how you like it," said John, passing her a fresh croissant from the bakery down the block. She pulled a piece of it off and popped it in her mouth. It was still warm.

"Thank you, John, you needn't have gone through so much trouble. It's delicious." She gave him a weak smile that suddenly faded as she stared at the pastry and her eyes got glassy.

"What is it, Molly?" He put his hand over hers. "Tell me."

"I used to avoid this bakery like the plague because it was so good. Sherlock. He would point it out whenever I gained a few pounds. So I stopped going there."

"I'm sorry he did that to you. I told him to stop, you know. I explained to him that this topic was completely forbidden whenever he spoke to any woman, but I assume that he didn't listen, that he just stopped saying it when I was around."

With a look on her face like she had tasted something bitter, Molly set the croissant down on a napkin and sipped her tea halfheartedly. "He rarely let an opportunity to hurt my feelings go to waste."

"Nor mine. But Molly, I think it was his way of protecting himself. He could keep us close to him without making himself vulnerable. I don't know what happened to him as a child, or a young man, that made him the way he was, and Mycroft certainly won't say, but he had to have been betrayed by someone he trusted, and he couldn't bear the hurt of going through that again."

Molly nodded and absentmindedly hugged her knees to her chest, resting her cheek on them. John thought she looked so small and afraid, and it made him want to hold her again, to protect her from Sherlock's ever-present shadow.

John carried the pastries and tea out to the living room, set them on table, and offered her his hand to help her up from the kitchen chair. She didn't even register that he was there.

"Molly?" he said for the fourth time, finally touching her shoulder. When she didn't respond, John picked her up easily and deposited her next to him on the sofa, his arm still around her shoulders. She weighed next to nothing when he'd carried her, and he wondered how much of her loose-fitting wardrobe was designed to cover up how thin she was. He allowed himself to stroke her shoulder, then her flank. He could feel most of her ribs through the cashmere.

"You need to eat, love. Just because Sherlock considered his body to exist only as transport for his mind, I'm sure he would have wanted us to be strong, and not faint from dizziness at his… funeral." There was no reaction from Molly. "I'd be happy to go get you something else if you like. Or we could go out for a bite." She didn't budge. John had seen Sherlock so many times in similar moods, he knew there was nothing to do but wait it out. "I'm not leaving, Molly, I'm just going to take a shower. I hope you don't mind."

After a hot shower and a shave, John felt more like himself. He did find it odd that Molly had a brand new and complete set of men's toiletries under her sink, tucked away into a little bin, but covered with a thin layer of dust. Someday he'd inquire about it, but today was not that day.

As Molly hadn't moved, John called Mycroft about the funeral, Lestrade to let him know about the arrangements, and Mrs. Hudson to console her and reassure her that he was fine and just staying with a friend. Angelo was the only other person John knew who might want to come to Sherlock's funeral, so he left a message at the restaurant.

After another thirty minutes, John couldn't take it anymore. He slid behind Molly, pulled her back against his chest, and held her tightly. Taking care of her distracted him from how much he was going to miss Sherlock, their arguments, and the life or death situations Sherlock put him in. Well, maybe not the last part.

"You are beautiful, Molly. And smart, and generous, and kind. For as insanely brilliant as he was, Sherlock missed the obvious, best thing that could have ever happened to him. You."

She relaxed into his embrace, and rested her head back against John's shoulder. "I tried being useful to him. I tried asking him out for coffee. I tried making him jealous by dating… other men." She didn't want to say Jim Moriarty's name. It gave the man too much dignity. "He just told me to give up on relationships altogether since I wasn't very good at them." She wiped her eyes. "He was right, you know."

John lowered his voice, and nearly whispered in her ear, "I wish he hadn't been like that with you."

She sniffed and shifted slightly so she could look up at him. "Was he like that with you, or was he… gentler… when you were together?"

"Together? Oh, you mean…" John was already bristling. "We were never 'together' in that sense, Molly. I only like women."

Molly seemed disappointed and she looked away again. "I'm sorry, John. People talked, and I…." She hesitated for a moment. "Though I think it would have made me feel better if you told me you two were shagging. Then I'd know he wasn't interested in me because he was in love with you."

John considered that for a moment. "Sorry to disappoint."

"Did he ever see anyone, while you lived with him? Man or woman?" Molly asked, hesitantly.

"Not that I'm aware of. He could have hidden it from me, but when we first moved in together, he told me that he didn't date because he was married to his work."

"What about Irene Adler? He identified her body, well, it wasn't really her body, but looking at her naked from the neck down. I heard you chide him about her before."

"I think Sherlock recognized her for a fellow high-functioning sociopathic genius. She was a challenge to him. I think she wanted to have him, but not in a romantic, candle-lit dinner sort of way. Irene wanted to win. She wanted to conquer him in any way she could. Sex was a weapon for her, not a gift."

"Did she… um… did Sherlock…"

"I really don't think so. If he did, he wouldn't have told me about it. He was a very private person, well, only when it came to his privacy. He had no respect for mine or anyone else's, as you well know." The thought made both of them smile slightly. "I had hoped that if he ever allowed himself to be loved, you would be the one."

Molly suddenly realized how intimately John was holding her, touching her. Was it just their shared pain? Was it brotherly, or something else? She had been taken in by the rumors, that perhaps Sherlock and John were a couple, but now that she knew they were not, she noticed how comfortable they both were like this, touching.

She reached up and lightly brushed her fingers over John's cheek. "Thank you for being so kind to me," she said. Inching her face closer to his, she tentatively pressed her lips to his and he didn't pull away. His lips were soft and warm, and after he recovered from her unexpected advance, he returned the kiss. He was tender and gentle with her, and it released some tightly held doubt that she had buried in her heart since she'd met Sherlock.

John didn't pressure her, didn't ask for more than she was ready to give, but he let his eagerness show through just enough for her to understand it wasn't pity that motivated him. He felt her sudden hesitation, just before she pulled back and looked away shyly. "I'm sorry. That was…"

She tried to slide away from him, but John held her shoulders, not so firmly that Molly couldn't break away from him, but just enough to show her she didn't have to go. "It's okay, Molly. The two of us are the only ones who will feel his loss so keenly. It makes sense for us to seek comfort in one another." Her shoulders relaxed slightly under his fingers, so he gently rubbed the tight muscles there with practiced hands. "It never has to happen again if you don't want it to, but I want you to know I enjoyed it… and I'm here for you." He let her go slowly.

"Okay, and…um… thank you." She stood and headed for her bedroom. "I'll just be a few minutes, if that's okay. Make yourself at home."

John nodded and managed a smile, which faded as soon as Molly turned away from him. She was getting to be as complicated as Sherlock, just in a more charming and attractive way.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Molly closed the door of her bedroom behind her and sat down on the bed. _What was I thinking?_ _Sherlock's been gone for a day and I'm kissing his best friend?_ Wasn't that what Sherlock wanted? For her to move on? John was a fine man. But it wasn't fair to John, in the end, if Sherlock came back and needed her.

Molly suddenly remembered the heavy envelope that Sherlock had left. She was home, and at least alone in her bedroom, so she pulled the package out of her bag, and draped his coat over her lap. With a deep breath, she carefully broke the seal and slid the contents out onto her bed. The first two things out were a handgun (complete with silencer), and a small clear bag full of what looked like cut diamonds. She picked it up and held it in her hand, trying to count them. She was no expert in jewelry, but there had to be a hundred different stones, from small accent stones to a few that were large enough to make nobility jealous. She always fantasized about Sherlock someday presenting her with a diamond, but leave it to him to twist the meaning and the sheer magnitude. These had to be hundreds of thousands of pounds, maybe more.

She set the diamonds back down carefully and picked up the first of ten separate letters, each in their own envelopes. The top one had her name on it, and her heart skipped a few beats as she opened it.

_Dearest Molly,_

_Do not hesitate to use the gun if the need arises. There is extra ammunition in the freezer at 221B. Please take what you need. John is an excellent shot and I expect he will teach you to shoot if you ask. Tell him I gave this to you months ago, but you never thought of learning to use it until now. _

_The diamonds are not stolen, if that is what you are worried about. They are small, portable, difficult to trace, and you can sell them at any jewelry store anywhere in the world. Owners will usually ask where you acquired the stones. Tell them you inherited them from your grandmother. Never go to the same store twice. _

_I've also provided you with a completely new identity should you have need of it. Moriarty could come after you if he suspects that I am alive. You know I would never willingly endanger you, but Moriarty knew of your proximity to me. Keep the gun, diamonds, and passport with you at all times. There is a list of contacts in eighteen countries who will help you if you mention my name, though I've included sufficient blackmail information on each if required to secure their assistance. Please memorize and destroy the original. _

_Run at the first sign of trouble, Molly. John already has several sets of identification of his own. Ask him to go with you if you have to leave. He is a good man and he will take care of you._

_I recommend that you take up a habit of giving money to the homeless, especially those outside of Bart's, Baker Street, and those near your flat. There is a stack of bills included in this package. It should last you months, but when you need more, sell one or two of the smaller diamonds. These men and women can be an asset to you in times of trouble, and they will be watching out for you, John, and Mrs. Hudson. _

_If you find yourself in desperate need of a higher degree of assistance, call Mycroft. He will, undoubtedly, feel no obligation to assist you. Tell him you know how he killed his wife (a deliberate overdose of heroin, that he stole from me, ironically) and how he falsified her medical records to make it look like a suicide. He blackmailed her psychiatrist, Dr. Martin St. John, 233A Chesterfield, Cambridge, with photos of the doctor engaged in sexually compromising positions with four of his patients, two of them minors. He keeps the photos in the safe in his office. If Mycroft believes that you are bluffing, tell him you know she was not his only victim, and you know about the bodies buried under the creek bed at our family estate. He won't require any details after that. _

_As a personal favor, I ask that you to take care of John. He will need you once I am gone. _

_I shall not be contacting you again unless I acquire information to suggest that you are in danger. If I am unable to clear my name, and destroy Moriarty, I will not return to London. Do not wait for me. _

_Thank you, Molly Hooper. I should have told you so many times before. Please forgive me, for everything. _

_SH_

_P.S. Commit the above information to memory and burn this letter immediately. _

Molly didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He had thought of everything, and clearly well ahead of time in order to get the documents. She examined the new passport, medical license, identification, school diplomas, and childhood history that she didn't doubt would stand up to close scrutiny. It was… caring of him to have done all of this for her. Apparently, she had not been beneath his notice outside of the lab. The thought made the hole in her heart feel smaller.

She sorted through the remainder of the envelopes. There was at least ten thousand pounds in cash, the list of contacts (which included personal phone numbers for the ruler of Dubai, a former Vice-President of the United States, several wealthy businessmen throughout Europe, the Duke of Cambridge, as well as a handful of very ordinary-sounding people throughout Great Britain.) There was even a flash drive labeled "Complete Case Files, 2003-2013".

The four envelopes, curiously labeled One, Two, Three, and Four, were a mystery to her. The first was Hamlet's soliloquy "To Be, or Not To Be", whose irony was not lost on her, given the circumstances. The second consisted of several pages of seemingly unrelated bible verses. The third one was a simple question: "What happened to Moriarty after the fall?" The fourth was a copy of the first journal article she ever had accepted for publication, on the patterns of skull damage from perimortem gunshot wounds.

Another letter, written on Bart's stationary, probably nicked from her office, Molly thought, contained only a quote from William Shakespeare, "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind." She had no idea what these were about, and most certainly the Shakespeare, but Sherlock never did anything without a purpose, no matter how obscure it might seem.

Molly hesitated before opening the last envelope, because she had a feeling she already knew its contents. She folded it up and shoved it into her pocket, and decided she would open it later, when it wouldn't hurt so much.

She slipped the passport, gun, and list of contacts into her handbag, but placed the packet of diamonds into her other pocket. Just because he was gone didn't mean that she would ignore his instructions. She had enough money with her that she didn't need to use any of his, so she placed everything else back into the package and taped it to the underside of her dresser.

Walking swiftly past John, who was reading the newspaper in her living room, Molly made her way to the kitchen and used the stove to ignite Sherlock's letter. The ashes littered the area around the burner, but she couldn't pull her eyes away from the flame. It was hypnotizing and beautiful in its own way.

John touched her shoulder, but she didn't seem to notice until he reached in front of her and turned off the flame. "What was that, Molly?"

She wiped her cheeks. "It's stupid, really. It's nothing."

John lightly rubbed her shoulders. "It's okay if you don't want to talk about it, but I'm sure it's neither stupid nor nothing."

"It is though," Molly sniffed. She didn't like lying to John, but it couldn't be helped. "It's a love letter I wrote to him, knowing that I'd never send it, but now it just seems stupid. He's gone, and I can't send it, now can I?"

It was both plausible and suitably pathetic, and the fact that John bought it without question made something tighten in her gut. She couldn't go on being like this. Sherlock might never return, which made her job as pathologist even more important. Someone had to help catch the criminals, and she had to be more than weak, love-struck, eternally-pitiful Molly.

John put his head on her shoulder and slid his arms around her middle. "It will get better, Molly. It will hurt less in time, I promise."

She nodded. "I know." Molly doubted that would be true, but she knew John was trying to reassure himself as well as her. "You're right." She turned around and pressed a light, quick kiss to his lips, and went back out to the living room. It was time to get started. She had to rid herself of the old Molly and create a new one. It hurt too much to be herself any more.

Picking up the earlier-discarded croissant, she ate half of it, to John's delight. "I can go with you, when you go back home. You shouldn't have to face it alone."

"I'd like that," John said, relieved. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. When did you want to leave?" It was ten o'clock by that point.

"Whenever you're ready."

"Just let me change into something with fewer tear stains on it." Molly went back to her bedroom and put on a tight-fitting, long sleeved black tee shirt that she sometimes wore under her scrubs. The basement of a hospital that old could get quite chilly in the winter, but she never dreamed of wearing it without a second layer. It clung to her curves in a way that she knew would draw too many inferences from Sherlock, likely none of them kind, but he wasn't here now.

Adding some subtle makeup and a pair of modest earrings, she grabbed her purse and headed for the living room. The look on John's face was priceless. He tried to conceal his appreciative surprise, but Molly didn't miss it. She smiled, and forced herself not to look away from his eyes. This was going to take practice, but it didn't feel as horrible as she thought it would. With that kind of response, she could get used to some scrutiny. John's eyes on her felt warm and welcoming; so unlike Sherlock's cold, calculating analytical ones. But she had to admit to herself that she still would have given anything to have Sherlock there, insulting the size of her breasts. She smiled wider. At least he'd noticed her breasts. It was a start.

"You look… ahem… very nice." So Dr. John Watson really was attracted to her, and not just placating her earlier. Interesting.

"Thank you," she said, taking his hand and squeezing it. The mood changed, though, as they headed for the door, remembering where they were headed.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Molly hesitated at the threshold. She'd only ever been to the flat once, for the Christmas party, when Sherlock…

"Together, then?" John took her elbow and they both stepped inside. The place was a mess. The DI's men had clearly been through there while they were away. "Guess I should have expected this, given what he did."

"He didn't do any of those things they said he did. You know it too." Molly was absolutely firm on this point. John went to the kitchen to make tea, not wanting to argue with her, but she followed him.

"I dunno," John said, shaking his head. "He knew things, Molly, about the crimes, about locations, and I couldn't always account for his whereabouts. They've already convicted him in the press, and now that he's… that he's gone, it will be impossible to clear his name." John swallowed reflexively, "and he… admitted to me he did those things… when he called."

"Before he fell…sorry… jumped?"

"Yes. He confessed."

"John, you knew him, probably better than anyone. You can't tell me you honestly believed him? Sherlock said, and did, many things that were reprehensible, and if he had been anyone else, I might have believed that. But I have never, never doubted him for a moment."

"Is it possible your judgment was clouded by your feelings for him?" John's hands shook as he set the cups upon the saucers.

"No, it's not. You were there with him most of the time, while he worked. I was there with him all of the time in the lab. He was there, in the lab, when some of those crimes were committed. I watched him, you know, his eyes, his face, especially when he didn't think I was. I could tell when he was lying."

"How did you know? How?" John raised his voice. "Because I sure as hell didn't."

"Every time he wanted something, he complemented me. He'd say something nice about my appearance, how I looked. It was his tone of voice, how he tried to look… normal, as he said it. He'd even smile, but it never reached his eyes. I had practice with his lies."

"Molly, don't…." John rested both of his hands on the counter, but he wouldn't look at her.

"But it was only when he wanted something from me—my time, my files, access to the lab, body parts to go. He tensed the muscles around the lateral aspects of his eyes when he complemented me, and he'd lean forward, with a loosening of his body posture, displaying the textbook body language of someone who was sincere. But on the rare occasions when he complemented me on my work, there was nothing different about his body language or his voice. He was just… Sherlock. He acknowledged truth, but didn't consider it a real complement, so he didn't have to change his behavior. After the first few times, I learned the difference, and he knew that I knew. He stopped flattering me and just asked me for what he wanted. Like he did with you."

"I'm sorry he did that to you but it doesn't exonerate him."

"Stop, John. I don't want your pity, not anymore. I'm telling you the evidence. Sherlock was not lying when he was working in the lab to solve those crimes."

"Well, I couldn't see his face up close from ground level, now could I? Certainly not his eyes just before he jumped. I just saw him fall… and then on the pavement, with the blood."

Molly stepped forward and rested her hand on top of John's. "You know he didn't do those things, John. We both want a reason why he jumped, why he felt like he had to say those things. You can either give in to the rumors and the despair, or you can help me prove his innocence." She surprised herself with her assumption of command.

"You're right. I know you're right. But why did he jump? Why, Molly? We could have helped him. I should have been able to stop him." John slid into Molly's arms with a practiced ease, and they held each other tightly.

"There's nothing you could have done, John. Nothing. It's not your fault." The words were truer than Molly would ever be allowed to reveal. "It was Moriarty. It has to be. We're going to find him." Molly's posture stiffened and a cold trickle of hate seeped into the hole in her chest and began filling up the void. "And we're going to kill him."

John pulled back to look at her, never having expected such a comment from the timid pathologist. He saw only calm resolve. He nodded at her, in an almost military fashion, and poured their tea.

Molly spent the rest of the day wandering through the living room, touching the spines of Sherlock's books, running her fingers over his scattered possessions, and peering through the half-open doorway leading to Sherlock's room. John caught her leaning against the doorframe, looking fragile and beautiful.

"Go on. It's okay. Under the circumstances, I don't think he'd mind."

John watched her from the doorway. Sherlock's room was very masculine, with its dark colors and minimalist furniture. The bed was made haphazardly, like Sherlock knew he should but couldn't bring himself to care. To Molly, standing there was no different from being alone in a vast and imposing church. She was afraid to touch anything, afraid to speak at more than a whisper, but at the same time she could feel Sherlock's presence in the room. It was...peaceful.

Lestrade's men had clearly been through the room, but they took some care not to make a complete mess. Molly straightened up the books reverently, reading each title, thumbing through some of them, and John wandered off to tidy up his own room.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

John answered the door just before five p.m. and came into Sherlock's room a few moments later, accompanied by a wonderful aroma of food. He touched Molly softly on the back, as she was sitting on the very edge of Sherlock's bed, engrossed in a well-worn book of Shakespeare's plays. John hadn't realized his friend was interested in The Bard… it didn't seem his style.

"Angelo brought some food and a bottle of wine. He has a restaurant nearby. It's very good." Molly seemed not to have heard him. "Sherlock helped him, a few years back. Angelo doesn't believe what they say about him either." John brushed a kiss against her damp cheek and slowly took the book from her and set it on the bed. "Do you want to come and eat?"

With a little encouragement, Molly managed a whole plate of pasta and two glasses of wine before they settled in the living room to watch telly. News was out, romantic comedies were out, and anything involving violence or death would not improve their moods, so they settled on a game show. Molly blurted out the answers before the questions were finished, so to defend his intellectual manliness, John joined in.

A third glass of wine and another episode later, they both felt more relaxed. Molly moved closer to John, until their shoulders and knees were touching, and he slipped his arm around her. She snuggled into him in the most inviting way, and even though their closeness at that moment wasn't overtly sexual, John realized just how much she needed this closeness to another human being. He wondered when the last time was she'd been touched and loved by someone who really cared about her, someone she loved back, and he was forced to ask himself the same question. All of his relationships since the war had been superficial, even the physicality wasn't predicated on an emotional bond, and he found he missed that terribly.

"Do you want to stay here tonight, Molly?" He kissed the top of her head.

She nodded and relaxed her head back his shoulder and kissed the side of his neck gently, barely brushing her lips over the sensitive skin underneath his ear. John closed his eyes and gave himself over to the sensation, wondering how he had come from losing Sherlock to being in the arms of the woman who loved his best friend. John's hands found their way to Molly's cheeks, and he guided her mouth up to his.

Her lips were soft and tasted sweet, like the wine they'd shared. The tip of her tongue slid across his bottom lip, and he moaned softly, granting her access as he pulled her closer and began his own exploration. Sherlock was so wrong; her mouth was perfect.

The tension in Molly's shoulders fell away, as if she knew what John was thinking, and he could feel her smile against his lips. Having this happy woman in his arms lessened his pain in so many ways. She put one hand behind his neck, and the other on the front collar of his shirt and pulled him with her as she lay back on the sofa. John braced an elbow to the side of her head and ran the fingers of his other hand through her soft hair and down the side of her neck, relishing in the smell of her shampoo, her skin, and the delicate feminine scent that was uniquely hers. He wanted to abandon logic and reason, all the things that would make touching her like this wrong, and just lose himself in her. His body had already made up its mind.

She kissed down his chin, across his jaw, and down the side of his neck, where her tongue licked in small circles back up to his ear. As if she knew how sensitive they were, she traced the outside rim lightly and she felt him shiver in response, and he sucked in a deep breath. Slight pressure of her teeth followed the same path, then her tongue again before she blew lightly in his ear, making him moan.

John returned the favor with more enthusiasm, savoring the taste of her skin, the sound of her sighs, and every little involuntary movement that betrayed her need. She held his head against her as his lips paid lavish attention to every part of the soft skin of her neck before returning to her mouth. As they kissed with increasing passion, Molly's hands slid down the muscles of his back through the thin cotton of his shirt. She pulled it free of his pants, and pushed it up enough that she could touch him.

His skin was so warm, Molly thought as she returned to kissing just under John's ear, making him wait for just a moment before she redirected her efforts to his earlobe, her teeth gently nibbling on it while he took in short, shallow breaths. She moved lower, to the base of his throat, as her fingers deftly opened the first button. With each successive button, her head moved lower to explore the newest bit of skin she revealed. The hair on his chest was a shade darker than on his head, but it was softer than she expected, and she rubbed her cheek against it as he rose up onto his hands to give her better access.

She loved the feeling of power his reactions gave her. He hadn't pulled away, asked her to stop, or pointed out that she was somehow inadequate or undesirable. Molly had felt him harden against her leg, just from her few inexpert touches, and the intensity of his responses made her feel wanted. John didn't hide how he felt, how what she did made him feel. She could read it in every muscle he tensed, every change in his breathing, and how he returned her hunger. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt so honestly desired.

When her mouth finally reached his upper abdomen, she pushed the shirt from his shoulders and took a few seconds to appreciate the view. He hesitated slightly before allowing the shirt to fall to the floor, and he seemed self-conscious for an instant. His clothes hid just how muscular he was, but the irregular patch of scarring over his left shoulder was white and shiny. She'd seen many similar scars before but he looked as though he were uncomfortable with her staring at it.

Molly smiled up at him, watching his warm blue eyes while she pulled herself upwards, wrapped her arms around his back, and planted tiny kisses across every millimeter of the scar. She showed him with her lips and tongue how much she wanted every inch of him, scar included, and she finally worked up the courage to move onto her side and let John lie down facing her. Ever so lightly, she touched his nipple and felt his heart pounding under her hand, his eyes closing again as his breathing hesitated. She kissed a circle around the nipple, before finally closing her mouth around it and sucking gently, then with more pressure.

A drawn out moan escaped John's lips, and Molly pulled back, worried she had hurt him. She had never done something so brash before. "I'm sorry…I…"

John pulled her quickly upwards and claimed her mouth with his as he let her feel the length of his hard cock against her hip. "Don't apologize… Molly…" he said in the short pauses between sucking on her lower lip, and plunging his tongue into her mouth. "That felt… so good…" He grazed teeth up the side of her neck then soothed the skin with his tongue. "I thought… I'd go mad... from it." He worked the other side of her neck until she was arching up into him and moaning, then he kissed her sweet mouth one last time. "Feel free to do it again… when you aren't so overdressed." He glanced downwards to her chest, then back to her eyes, silently asking permission.

Molly hesitated. Until then, she'd been able to push the past out her mind, but her past of poor decisions threatened like an impending storm.

John brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek as he saw her fighting with her emotions. Was it just nerves from being with someone new? Then he caught it as she looked down and away from him. It was fear.

"It's okay." He held very still. "We don't have to do anything you don't want to. We've both been through a lot in the last two days, and we've had a few glasses of wine…"

She pulled back slightly and finally met his eyes. "It's not that, John. It's not you. It's me." She made no move to sit up or disentangle herself from him, so he waited patiently for the war in her mind to subside.

"What is it, Molly? What's wrong?"

She met his eyes for a brief moment as she opened her mouth as if to speak, but then closed it again and looked away. He felt her shutting down emotionally. A tear silently slid down Molly's cheek, but she forced herself to relax. "You've been so kind to me, John, but I…"

"You're in love with Sherlock. I know, and it's okay. I'm not asking you to set those feelings aside for me, I never will."

That's when Molly knew John was too good of a person to subject to her pathetic life history. She lied to him many times in the last two days, what was one more? "Thank you, I appreciate that, but I think… with all the stress… that I'm transferring my need to be intimate with Sherlock to you. And that's not fair to you, John." She sat up and it killed her to pull away from him and hand him his shirt from the floor. "No one has made me feel wanted like you did… not in a very long time. Thank you, and I'm so sorry."

"Since you met him, Sherlock that is, you haven't had a… how can I put this delicately… an intimate relationship?"

That spooked her thoroughly, John saw.

Molly found her hastily-discarded shoes, and smoothed her shirt down. "I have to go."

John got to the door before she did. He held up his hands in front of him, trying to reassure her. "Molly, it's late, you've had some wine. Stay here tonight. I'll make up my bed for you, and I'll sleep on the couch." She bit her lower lip and looked everywhere but his eyes. "We don't have to have that kind of relationship. And I'm not upset with you. I still value you greatly as a friend, a colleague, and the only other person in the world that hurts as badly as I do over that stupid git."

Molly looked up at him finally and nodded. "Okay," she said quietly.

"Good. Then that's settled. Why don't you come up to my room while I finish tiding it up for you?" He took her hand gently, in a supportive, rather than sexual way. "I have a few old shirts that should easily fit you, and you'll be more comfortable."

He pushed open the door to reveal a neat but Spartan room. The only personal touches to the room were two photos, one of John at a military hospital surrounded by twenty men and women, some with visible injuries or bandages, the other of John in his military dress uniform, hung just over a framed set of four medals. Molly admired his photograph.

"You look very handsome in your uniform, John. Maybe someday you can tell me about the medals," she said, brushing her finger over their glass covering.

John winked at her in a teasing way. "So you like a man in uniform, then? I'll hold onto that bit of information in case you ever change your mind." She blushed and moved away to look at the rest of the room while he changed the sheets on the bed with military precision. "I do still have that uniform, by the way," he said, wiggling his eyebrows playfully as he handed her a soft cotton button-down shirt.

She punched him in the arm lightly, relieved that the tension between them had eased up enough that she had the courage to frame her question. "John, have you always thought I was… attractive… or is it just because we have both been so… sad?" Her eyes avoided his. She knew she was like a dog who had been beaten too many times. She'd come to expect the pain, but she needed to know.

John sat down on the bed and patted the space next to him. She sat down, and he rested his hand gently on her back, between her shoulder blades. "I've always thought you were attractive, and smart, and… uniform-worthy." He tried to smile to lighten her mood.

"Then why didn't you..."

"Because I knew you were in love with Sherlock. I knew that the handful of men you dated, and so very obviously mentioned in front of him, were only attempts to make him jealous. Sometimes I think it worked."

His words were so unexpected that Molly forgot her embarrassment and opened gaped at him. He smiled at her broadly. "I see! You think he was incapable of caring about someone, anyone, and that he took pleasure in being cruel to you."

"He did. I know he did. He always said such horrible things to me, even when I tried everything to impress him."

"Now that I'm talking to you, the whole thing is making more sense. Sherlock was a man who took pride in his solitude and I think to some degree, his loneliness. He wanted that human connection, but he saw it as a weakness. I think he found some of that from his friendship with me. He had a reason to keep me around since I was his assistant. I helped him with his work, which was paramount in his mind, but he never let me into his private thoughts or feelings. He and Mycroft had one thing they agreed on, and only one, which was that emotions were a weakness, and Achilles' heel, if you will, that kept them from their respective goals. But I think he was really very lonely."

She and John had rarely had moments alone before this and no opportunity to discuss Sherlock without him overhearing. "When anyone else, myself included, mentioned their romantic life in his presence, he ignored them completely, as it held no interest for him. Sherlock tried to actively discourage you, though."

"I thought it was just so I'd be available at his beck and call whenever he needed access to the lab. I used stay late, arrive early, and come in on my days off for him. My social life was nearly non-existent, and no one I met from those internet dating sites could ever measure up to him."

"He may have been jealous of anyone else in your life, Molly, maybe he was even somewhat possessive of you."

Molly raised her eyebrow at John in doubt and shook her head. "No, I don't think so. I was right there, the whole time, and most days he barely spoke to me." She fiddled with the fabric on the hem of her shirt.

"Sherlock kept everyone at arm's reach, and he did that by being cruel, whether it was intentional or not. It was his way of protecting himself and maybe us as well. He knew Moriarty," Molly stiffened and pulled away slightly, "was after him, and wouldn't hesitate to use his friends to get to him." John sat up straighter and then stood up, pacing back and forth across the floor. "That has to be it. That has to be it, Molly. Don't you see? Sherlock jumped because he was protecting us. That bastard must have been threatening us." Molly silently prayed John wouldn't figure it all out. "He'd have wanted nothing more than for Sherlock to die in disgrace." John kept pacing back and forth, his mind sorting through the particulars.

"John… he just, jumped. I saw him, the day before, when you two were there working on the kidnapping case. He looked depressed and miserable when he thought you couldn't see him, but it was worse than ever before. Maybe he couldn't take the sadness and isolation anymore."

He stopped pacing and sat down with her again, rubbing a hand over his forehead. "Maybe you're right. I just so desperately want to believe anything other than suicide. Sherlock wasn't weak, he wouldn't take the easy way out."

"I know," she rubbed John's back as a fresh wave of tears pulled them both under.

Several minutes of silence passed. "Is it okay to still hug you, Molly? Can I take your hand if I need your strength… at the funeral? No pressure."

"I'd be honored, John Watson."

He nodded briefly, got up, and closed the door behind him, leaving Molly alone with her thoughts.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Molly left just after eight o'clock in the morning, half a pastry in her hand, which she promised John she would eat.

She showered and changed into the same conservative black dress she wore to her father's funeral, but she had to spend twenty minutes taking in the waist as she had lost at least fifteen pounds since then. She put on her practical flats, and tried to add enough makeup to camouflage the dark, puffy circles under her eyes and her red cheeks. Nothing helped her bloodshot eyes, though.

Everything with Sherlock, and then John… She was relieved that John stayed behind to escort Mrs. Hudson to the funeral. Molly needed a few hours to put herself back together.

"It is a funeral. I supposed it's fitting that I look like I've been crying nearly nonstop for two days," she said to her reflection. A few minutes later, she grabbed her handbag, complete with the passport, gun, and diamonds. He was gone and she still followed his every instruction, she thought, shaking her head.

As she opened the door, she found Greg Lestrade outside, arm up and ready to knock. "Oh, hello. I thought you might like to ride with a friend."

"Thanks." She tried to smile, but it didn't reach her eyes. Greg hadn't expected it to.

"How are you holding up, Molly?"

"Fine. I'm fine."

"Molly, it's me. You don't have to pretend."

"Yes, I do. He always thought I was simple and weak. This is my last chance to show him I'm not." Greg nodded and tried to put his hand on her back as they walked, but she stepped away. "I'm sorry, it's not you. You're a good man, Greg, but if you try to comfort me right now, I will break down completely."

He nodded curtly. "I understand." He walked ahead of her to his car, and held the door for her, waiting patiently while she handed some money to a homeless person.

They rode in silence, as Molly took the final envelope from Sherlock out of her bag. She rubbed her fingers over the paper, feeling the disc underneath it, before finally tearing open the end and letting the pocket watch fall into her palm.

"What's that?" Greg asked cautiously. The inspector in him never took a rest.

"It's the watch I gave Sherlock last Christmas. You know, when he… I didn't think he would mind if I took it back." She suddenly realized she just admitted to theft from a corpse. "Oh no, Greg… I've never taken anything from a body in my lab ever…"

Greg chuckled. "Molly, relax. I'm not going to arrest you. I'm sure Sherlock would have wanted you to have it."

If he only knew the truth of his words. "Thank you," was all she could muster.

"It's the least I can do. And don't think I'm using this to wipe out my debt to you. I still owe you big."

Molly nodded and turned the watch over and over in her hands. The silver was mildly tarnished, (she never expected Sherlock to clean it) but there was a definite shiny patch on the front cover. It was about the width of a man's thumb. Was it compulsive habit that helped him think about his cases, or was he thinking of her? She took a deep, shuddering breath in, and slid the watch back into her purse. Of course it was just a habit. Sherlock didn't long for her outside of her own imagination.

"You can do this," Greg said carefully. He'd been watching her out of the corner of his eye.

Molly nodded, but she wasn't sure. She knew Sherlock was alive, but if he never came back, or if he returned and just resumed his casual indifference to her when she wasn't needed for his work, it might as well have been the same as death. She needed to accept that and move on. It seemed like a good plan, sort of like planning to summit Everest without any knowledge of mountain climbing. Or oxygen.

"Please tell me now that you don't believe that Sherlock was involved in any of those terrible crimes. Please Greg, you know he wasn't."

"I don't believe he kidnapped and poisoned children, or strapped bombs to innocent grandmothers. He was the real deal, but I couldn't stop the department from coming to arrest him because we just didn't have another plausible explanation at the time. He seemed too good to be true."

"It was Moriarty. You know that right?"

"Yes. When the boy woke up he told us that he and his sister had been told they would be killed if they didn't scream when they saw Sherlock. The kidnapper had his photograph."

She closed her eyes and silently thanked the little boy. "Thank you, Greg."

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek chastely before settling back down in her seat. He was still trying to figure out what to say as they passed through the police checkpoint and pulled up in front of the cemetery.

"Moriarty may be here," Molly said. "He wants to gloat, if only in his own mind."

"I doubt it. I have men stationed throughout the cemetery and surrounding streets, keeping the press, and any other curious onlookers away."

"It won't be enough. Not for him." Before he could say anything else to her, Molly opened the door and walked briskly towards the small gathering of people near the grave.

Molly understood now what she had to do. She opened the front of her coat to let the frigid wind wash over her. The cold bit into her skin while the thin black dress offered little protection. She welcomed the discomfort. The physical pain focused her mind away from the gaping void in her heart, and she knew at that moment how she could face this, all of this.

John saw her and opened his arm to her, inviting her close, but she shook her head and left him to tend Mrs. Hudson, who was quietly weeping over the casket. Molly avoided John's eyes. If she looked, he might warm the icy feeling that seeped into her bones, and she needed the distraction too much.

Mycroft was the one she chose. She had met him only one or two other times, and he'd paid her little mind. She doubted he would start now. He stood there emotionless, his eyes devoid of any kind of feeling, as he stared at the casket resting over that deep hole.

Several cemetery employees worked around the headstones a few hundred yards away, but none were Moriarty. The men looked around every few seconds, but for every ten glances and the perimeter, they looked towards the group of mourners only once. So those were Greg's men, or Mycroft's. Everyone else there was watching the coffin. No one was looking up. None of them.

Molly wrung her hands and wiped at her eyes, shifting her weight back and forth between her feet as she stared at the casket, making it plausible that she would need to look anywhere but at Sherlock's coffin. She tilted her head back and glanced upwards at the tree branches in front of her, then abruptly turned around, making it seem like she was overwhelmed, or embarrassed.

There is was, just inside the dense spruce tree… she could just catch the reflection off the lens of the camera. She covered her face with her hands and looked down towards the ground, making sobbing noises. Mycroft hesitated for a moment, then lightly touched her arm, holding out a handkerchief. Molly used the excuse to fling herself on Mycroft in a tight hug, which he didn't return, but Mycroft was nothing if not exceptionally proper with his British manners, so Molly knew he wouldn't fling her off or create a bigger scene.

"There, there, Dr. Hooper," he said flatly.

"There's a camera concealed in the high branches of the spruce behind you," Molly whispered calmly into the lapel of his coat so only he would hear her, still holding onto him tightly. "If it's not yours, it's Moriarty's."

It was then that he slid an arm up to her shoulder and patted her, like one would do for an injured child, but with far less compassion. He leaned down to her ear and whispered back, "I'll take care of it." Mycroft straightened up and began to pry her off him.

She hung on for a second longer. "Send a car for me the day after tomorrow, six a.m.," she whispered, careful that his coat concealed the movement of her lips. She had to assume that there were additional cameras. Moriarty may be a narcissistic psychopath, but he was neither stupid nor careless.

Molly allowed Mycroft to pull away and look put out at her foolish, female behavior. "I'm so sorry… I… I don't know… what came over me…" She took a step back from him. He again handed her the handkerchief, which Molly used to dab at her eyes, before shoving it and the concealed business card it contained into the pocket of her coat.

By that point, John had made his way around to her, and he invited her to come and stand by him and Mrs. Hudson, while he shot an apologetic look at Mycroft.

Molly avoided looking at Mycroft's face after that, but she did seem him send a text just after their encounter. Good.

Mycroft took the lead and said a few words over the casket, but as Sherlock didn't believe in God, there was no religious official present. Mrs. Hudson was too upset to speak, but John spoke for several minutes about how much Sherlock meant to him, how his friendship had saved him after his return from the war, and how in spite of all Sherlock's quirks, he was a the finest man John had ever known. She felt so sad for John, and when he returned to his place beside her, she slipped her arm around his waist and pulled him closer, even though it broke her fragile resolve and she cried silently next to him.

John wanted some time alone at the grave, so Greg took Mrs. Hudson home, while Molly waited a respectful distance away and tried to look elsewhere so John could have some privacy as he knelt on the freshly turned earth. Their final moments of contact were so hard on John, she knew. He never had the chance to say goodbye like she did. She closed her eyes and let her mind relive those last five minutes with Sherlock, and she was immensely grateful for every one of them.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Warning! This chapter is rated M for smutty goodness. If you aren't a John/Molly fan, skip it. Otherwise, enjoy!

Chapter 10

Molly rode with John back to Baker Street, but he couldn't get out of the cab. He hadn't said a word since the funeral.

"John, do you want me to come up with you?" She didn't want to presume that he still wanted her there after everything that had happened, or more importantly, hadn't happened the night before.

He finally looked at her and shook his head no, but he made no move to leave. "I really don't feel like being alone today," Molly said. "Would you come back to my place for a while? I'll make you some tea."

John looked relieved. "Yes."

Molly gave the driver her address and John didn't pull away when she held his hand. His skin was warm, and she found herself lingering over the calluses on his fourth finger. He had surgeon's fingers, long and strong, and so precise from years of practice. She wondered idly why he didn't do surgery anymore.

John just stared at his tea until Molly took it from him and set it on the table. "What do you need, John? Please tell me."

"Need," he said softly. "Need?" he said more loudly. "I need him back!" John shouted. "That's what I need! I need to tell him not to jump. I need to tell him that he had people who really cared about him. I need to punch that smug look off his face until he lets us in to that fortress he built around him. I loved him like a brother, Molly. I'd have eaten a bullet after I was discharged from the army if it weren't for him. He was there for me in a time no one else was, and he wouldn't let me be there for him when he needed someone. Why? Why couldn't he have let me help him?" John crumpled and sobbed, and Molly held him while he cried, and she cried along with him.

"He knew you cared. I saw it on his face, the day before, when he looked at you in the lab. He was sad, John, when he looked at you. I asked him why he was sad but he wouldn't tell me. I knew something was wrong because he didn't even try to deny it. I offered to help him in any way he needed, but he didn't want help. I think he'd already decided. He didn't want help, but he regretted that it was going to hurt you. There was nothing you could have done." Molly stroked his hair tenderly, as he laid his head in her lap and pulled her close.

By the time they both finally settled, it was late afternoon. Molly put John to work making salad while she cooked the chicken, but they ate in silence, both too lost in their own grief. When she finally got up to clear the table, John gently encircled her wrist with his fingers, looking up her, pleadingly. "Please, Molly. Help me."

She left the plates on the small kitchen table and led him towards her room. He hesitated at the doorway. "It's okay. I know. Let me help you." Pulling his head down to hers, she placed feather light kisses across his forehead, his eyelids, his cheeks, waiting for him to react, to move in some way. When she kissed him on the lips, his need surfaced all at once.

He took her face between his palms and kissed her deeply, demanding entrance and his tongue wasting no time plundering her mouth. She returned the kiss eagerly, knowing what would happen between them soon and how much this kind and generous man, Sherlock's closest friend, needed her chase death away, even for just one night. She could do this, she told herself. She could block out her past and do this for John. _Take care of John_, Sherlock had said. She could do this for both of them.

John kissed her like he was a starving man given manna from heaven. He pulled her tightly against him, murmuring her name like a prayer as he devoured her lips, then her neck, wanting her to feel how much he needed her. Molly broke the contact to pull loose his tie and open the buttons on his shirt. As she let them drop to the floor, he reclaimed her, pressing her against him from head to toe. She felt how hard he was against her thigh as he unzipped the back of her dress, pulling back slightly to let it pool at her feet.

He let his eyes wander over her body, then settle on her eyes. "You are so beautiful." The sincerity, the reverence, in his quiet voice nearly made her cry. She didn't deserve him but she reminded herself this wasn't really about her, not tonight. _Take care of John_. She could never say no to Sherlock, regardless of the personal cost to her.

She let John kiss her again, knowing there was no going back as she loosened his belt and zipper, letting them fall to the floor. He bent down and slid his strong arm around the back of her knees, lifting her easily to his chest as he carried her to the bed, pulled the sheets back, and set her down gently between them. Molly heard Sherlock's coat slide off the bed and onto the floor, but John didn't seem to notice.

He settled himself on his side next to her, his eyes following his hands as they roamed down her ribcage to the expanse of her abdomen, fascinated by each inch of her skin. His soft lips followed the same path, but then he brushed his fingertips around her left breast in an ever-narrowing circle until he reached her nipple, still covered by the thin lace of her bra.

Molly arched her back, silently begging him to continue, so he repeated the motions on her other breast, and she found that if she focused only on his touch, only on how much he enjoyed touching her, she could block out everything else. His strong hands were gentle as they lifted her and unclasped her bra, and he used his teeth to pull it down her arms, kissing her with every step, until her bra lay discarded on the floor.

John pressed soft but insistent kisses all around her breasts until she squirmed, desperate for more contact. She felt him smile against her skin as he relented and licked her right nipple several times before sucking it gently into his mouth. It was warm, and wet, and the pressure he built there drove her mad. Molly ran her fingers through his hair, pulling him closer, showing him that she wanted and needed more. He cupped her breast, fitting it perfectly in his hand as he sucked harder on her nipple, his teeth grazing the tip. When he had her panting, he moved to the other side until she moaned and squirmed for release.

He moved up her chest, then her neck, nipping lightly as he went, until he reached her mouth, where their tongues entwined with abandon. Molly had forgotten how good it could feel to be in the arms of someone who cared about her and about her pleasure; it had been so many years. She knew that she could trust John. He would not hurt her, even now, when his need was so intense.

Pressing him onto his back, Molly traced the curves of his pectorals, wondering why he always wore shirts that concealed his strong muscles. She tried to be as patient with exploring him as he had been with her, but his hands were all over her, teasing her, and she quickly relented and latched on to his sensitive bud, tormenting him with her tongue and dragging her teeth lightly across the tip. The other nipple received equal attention until he cried out her name and pulled her back up to his mouth.

"I won't last long enough if you keep that up." He kissed her hungrily. She smiled as he looked into her eyes and he returned it. "But where are my manners?" John quickly flipped them both over, so that he was straddling her thighs, sweetly tormenting her nipples with his hands and mouth until they were rock hard and ultra-sensitive. She gave herself over to the sensation and her trust in him, knowing he would take care of her.

He kissed down her abdomen and all along the border of the satiny material that remained her only scrap of clothing. As he moved to her inner thighs, she couldn't help but open her legs to grant him access. He tentatively touched her core through the thin fabric and breathed in the scent of her arousal before placing delicate kisses there, enough that she could feel the warmth of his mouth on her, his breath on her slightly wet thighs. She reminded herself he knew what he was doing, he was experienced in this, and he wouldn't hurt her.

Slowly he pulled her panties down, kissing each newly-revealed intimate area with his lips and tongue. Once she was fully naked before him, she had a split second of panic, holding up her hand to him.

"Has no one ever made love to you like this before?" He asked, sensing her reluctance.

She shook her head, afraid of what he would think if she said it out loud.

"Oh, Molly," he said, reverently stroking her inner thigh. "Please allow me the great honor of being the first to give you such delicious pleasure."

"John, I…" he cut her off by covering her with his mouth, his tongue rubbing circles around her clit as she moaned in pleasure.

"Let me take care of you, Molly. Let me show you how it can be." He resumed the hot, wet tonguing of her clit as his thumbs parted her folds, finding her moisture there. She collapsed back against the pillow, but didn't know what to do with her hands. It was too brazen to hold his head there, too intimate, but he solved the problem by pulling her knees up and out, then sliding his arms beneath her legs to take her hands in his, interlocking their fingers as he sucked harder of her clit.

She arched her back off the mattress, desperate for him to stop, or maybe keep going, she wasn't sure which. He freed one of her hands, but the other he held firmly, grounding her, helping her trust him. His finger, slick with her wetness, replaced his mouth over that supersensitive bundle of nerves, while he licked lower, his tongue sweeping broad strokes through her folds, then penetrating her lightly.

He rubbed firm circles that made her gasp for breath and forget all of her anxieties. But when he pressed a finger inside of her, finding the spot deep inside that overwhelmed her, she shattered. She screamed as the orgasm ripped through her, and John helped her ride it, prolonging her pleasure as she collapsed back against the sheets. His movements slowed but didn't stop as he watched her intently.

A second finger stretched her gently, and she was too spend to protest. He pressed both fingers upward against the spot that had sent her over the edge, his mouth finding her clit again, rubbing small circles over each bundle of nerves while the aftershocks of her orgasm rolled over her. Molly wanted to tell him that one orgasm was all she could do, but as soon as she opened her mouth, she felt the pressure building again.

"That's it, give in to it," John purred against her thigh. His mouth descended on her again, replacing his fingers on her clit, pushing her towards the brink. She didn't think she could take anymore as she bucked her hips, but John followed her effortlessly.

"John… please… I…" She begged him.

He broke contact for only a moment while he fumbled with something on the floor, then she heard a wrapper opening, but he was back with her before she had much time to think, his fingers working their magic deep inside of her, and when he added a third, stretching her open, she knew she was close.

John crawled up her body, positioning the head of his cock right at her opening, then angled his hips as he slid in slowly. She was almost too tight for him, but he had ensured she was very wet between his mouth and her earlier orgasm, and he was fully inside of her with only a few strokes. Molly bucked her hips under him, unsure if she wanted to get away or encourage him, not sure what she needed as he filled her again. He sped up his thrusts, reaching underneath her to hold her close while he nipped at her neck and groaned his desire in her ear. She clenched around him.

"Again, Molly, come for me again. Come for me," John said, his voice thick with desire. He increased the pressure each time he filled her, grinding his pelvis against hers. Every muscle in her body tensed and her mind and body came apart as she cried out again and again. A few more thrusts and John joined her, the white-hot pleasure enveloping them both while he called out her name.

When they finally stilled, John pressed light kisses all over her face and lips. He was patient as she came back to reality and opened her eyes. The tenderness and the love she saw in his face made her heart ache.

"You are so incredibly beautiful, Molly," he whispered to her. "I want to spend hours doing that." He kissed her cheek and tasted the fresh tears as she turned on her side and clung to his chest. "What is it, Molly? Talk to me, please. Did I hurt you?"

Where could she start? She set out to comfort John, but ended up in a worse place emotionally than when she started. How could she tell him that this felt like a betrayal of Sherlock in her heart, even though he'd told her to find someone else? She couldn't tell John what happened to her before—he wouldn't want her then, no man would want her then… and that because of what she had planned, this could never last. She could neither be what she was now, nor who John would want her to be.

"I'm not beautiful. And you don't have to lie to me, I know the truth, and I don't deserve…" The words poured out of her before she realized she was saying them.

"Stop this. Stop." John propped himself up on his elbow and gently turned her face up to his. "Don't let him haunt you, or…us. Not here, not like this. Please." He kissed her and held her close, his leg slung over hers protectively and Molly buried her head in the crook of his neck.

She nodded enough that John could feel it, and he soothed her as she calmed, whispering endearments and stroking her arm and back until their breathing became more regular. A few minutes later, John drifted off to sleep, still holding her.

_Sherlock will always haunt me,_ Molly thought just before she surrendered to the darkness.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

John slept well and awoke feeling better than he had in days. The despair was less crushing, and he could still taste Molly when he licked his lips. He was cautiously optimistic as he rolled over to find that most delectable woman so he could start her day off right, but the bed was empty. It was only six a.m., but he'd been conditioned to be an early riser in the military. Molly, on the other hand, usually looked tired in the morning and had several cups of coffee when she had an early shift, so he had expected her to be in bed at this hour.

The apartment was empty and there was no note, so he assumed she'd run out briefly for coffee, but he was worried anyway. While the sex had been incredible, he could have pushed her too far, too fast. She had wanted it as well, hadn't she?

He waited another half hour without any sign before finally decided to call her. At the first ring, Molly walked through the door clutching Sherlock's Belstaff coat to her chest.

"I'm sorry," Molly said. "I didn't realize you'd be up." She walked towards her bedroom, avoiding John's eyes.

"We need to talk about this," said John, his voice neutral.

She hesitated but didn't turn around. Without answering him, Molly squared her shoulders and walked into her bedroom.

John followed her slowly, pinching the bridge of his nose. He leaned on the doorframe as she folded Sherlock's coat reverently and laid it on her nightstand. Molly obviously knew he was there.

She sat down on the edge of her bed and buried her head in her hands. "I miss him, John. I miss the false flattery, the inconsiderate demands, the single-minded determination, the brilliance of his mind, and those rare moments where he actually _saw_ me."

He approached her slowly, sitting down next to her and wrapping his arms around her. She was freezing, so he pulled her close to warm her. "I miss him too." John stared at the coat. He could still see Sherlock flipping up the collar when they headed out for a case. She'd had the coat with her, but must have been outside in only the thin shirt and pants she was wearing. He knew she'd taken the coat from the morgue. It was her tangible link to the man she loved.

Molly turned slowly and kissed him on the lips, but it wasn't sexual. It was full of longing and sadness. Then she stepped away.

"I can't go on like this, every day, mourning him, being weak, stupid, insecure Molly Hooper. I can… we… can give him closure, John. We are the only ones who can. And we are the only ones who can find and kill Moriarty. He is still out there, and he won't bask in the glory of his triumph for very long before he's back and looking for a new challenge. He will kill again… hurt people again. Scotland Yard believes Moriarty doesn't exist, so they will neither look for him nor understand the messages he will leave."

"Molly..." John run his hand down his face, trying to comprehend the enormity of what she was asking.

"You and I are the only ones who have a chance of getting to him. We will never be as good as Sherlock, but we learned from him, being with him, didn't we?"

"Lestrade won't exactly be beating down the door—he knew I wasn't the one solving the cases. The media has ruined Sherlock's name, and by association, mine, so there won't be any emails or calls coming in either."

"Check."

"What?"

"Check your email."

"This is insane."

"We had better start thinking that way, or we won't be able to understand him."

John let it hang there, wondering whether she was talking about Sherlock or Moriarty. He hesitated, trying to see any way that her plan was logical or prudent.

"It's alright John, I'll just handle it by myself," she said, exiting to the living room.

He went after her. "So you're suggesting we find a way to take over Sherlock's job as a Consulting Detective? Just like that? Without a plan?"

She opened her laptop. "I have a plan, John. A very well thought out plan. And it will work." Within a minute, John's email was open and she turned the laptop towards him.

"That's my email! How did you…?"

An eerie calm settled over Molly's features. "If I tell you, it will upset you. As I'm sure you know, none of us appreciate having our deeply personal sentiments exposed easily. Just change your password."

John didn't know whether to be impressed or insulted.

"Moriarty won't be able to resist sending you some kind of message. He likes to… relive his… moments." Her eyes drifted off to the window.

"What does that mean?" John stopped and stared at her. "Molly? What does that mean?"

She let out a breath slowly. "Find us a case, something easy, something Sherlock might have turned down. You have your own reputation to build here. And leave my name out of it."

"What? Why?"

Molly went to her purse and pulled out the gun, setting on the table in front of John. "And I will need some lessons. I understand you are an excellent shot."

He stared at the gun momentarily, then got up and walked towards her, arm outstretched, but she took a step away from him. "What happened to you this morning, Molly?"

"I decided to stop being the victim."


	12. Chapter 12

Thank you again to all the kind reviewers. You are why I write. -Laurelin

Chapter 12

Two hours later, they were at a basement range beneath a military base. John clasped hands with a tall, very muscular man with dark eyes and short dark hair, wearing a khaki uniform of the US navy. His body language broadcast complete control of everything while still managing to look at ease. While he and John exchanged a few pleasantries, obviously not having seen one another in some time, Molly observed the man's posture. Shoulders back, chin tucked slightly, hands comfortably at his sides, no trace of nerves or hesitation, voice calm and even. He was friendly, even, but there was no mistake—he could kill you with his bare hands if the situation were no longer friendly.

"What are you up to these days, Brendan?" John asked, seemingly delighted to talk to his old friend.

"Training and contract work, I'm afraid. But who is this gorgeous woman, John?" His relaxed Texas drawl was a pleasant surprise. He reached out to grasp her hand in both of his as they shook, and she noted how he was strong but deliberately gentle with her. Everything about his movement was controlled. "Please tell me she's your sister, Captain,that she's single, and you're not just here to show off to your lady friend." He beamed a gorgeous smile at her.

John moved between the two, slightly possessively. "Alright, alright, at ease Lieutenant."

Lieutenant Callahan smiled and winked at Molly before stepping away. She was strangely delighted at his relaxed forwardness, which was clearly an American trait. "I've set you up in lane five, and I tossed out the rest of the staff, so you're free to, ahem, hit the target at will." Callahan lightly punched John in the arm before leaning towards Molly. "He saved my life, you know. Don't be too hard on him when he gets distracted from the, ahem, shooting lesson." His genuine laugh was surprisingly open and affectionate, but it had made John slightly uncomfortable.

"We are actually here to teach her how to handle a firearm safely," John said, a little flustered.

Callahan had already headed for the office. "Oh, yes, I'm sure you are," he called back lightly, leaving the innuendo hanging. He closed the door behind him, leaving John and Molly alone in the small room outside of the actual range.

John cleared his throat. "Sorry about that. He's a bit of a… Right, shall we?" John held the door open for her, and they donned their glasses and hearing protection. John had insisted that she leave her "illegal" gun at home, but there were two identical ones set out for them, with four boxes of ammunition.

"What did he mean…'training and contract work'?" Molly asked, lifting John's ear protection to whisper to him.

"It means he's CIA, or MI-6, or goodness only knows what. He's also a Navy Seal," John laughed and picked up the handgun as Molly's mind worked that over. No dog tags. He wasn't US military currently; the uniform was a ruse. While John went over the basic mechanics and demonstrated the stance, Molly tried to see what Sherlock would have. The callous on the left forth finger, the irregularities in growth of his fingernails, the way his eyes flicked quickly over her waist and the sides of her chest, scanning for weapons, and how he kept an eye on the exits at all times.

Molly stepped into place and John stepped behind her, placing his hands on her forearms and glancing over her shoulder to help her aim. While he started out as helpful the first fifteen or twenty shots, he lingered on longer than strictly necessary, his touch becoming lighter and more of a caress than an instruction.

"John." She admonished him slightly, but didn't insist that he stop.

"Focus or tell me to stop, if you want. If you're going to go up against these people, it won't be in a quiet controlled environment. It will be with… distractions." He pressed his lips against the sensitive skin under her left ear.

She finished the remaining shots in the clip, trying to quiet her mind, calling the bone-chilling cold of her morning on the roof to mind. It helped.

"You're doing quite well," John said as she reloaded, his hands moving to her hips. "I find it quite arousing to watch you with your hands on that gun."

She missed the target the next shot. Her anxiety at the presumed intimacy, the memories of what happened between them last night, and the fear that John wanted… that… again.

John felt her tense. "Whatever just happened there, push it away. The only things that matter are the gun, and the target. Breathe out, then squeeze the trigger like I showed you." She hit the center on the next two shots, but then her aim drifted when John's fingertips trailed up down her ribcage. "Focus, Molly," he said, sounding strangely like Sherlock in his tone.

While they took a short break, Molly questioned John about Callahan. "How did you two meet?" She tried to sound interested and casual.

"The Taliban killed most of Brendan's strike team, and captured him and another Seal. The British forward operating base was closest to his position, and the US asked for our help getting to him before the Taliban could fortify their position. I volunteered to go along because we had intel that he was shot before his capture." Molly momentarily worried that she was bringing up bad war memories, but John seemed happy to tell the story.

"I was with the SAS. Great blokes, all of them. I was supposed to stay in the back and let them do the work, but things rarely go as planned in those circumstances, and I ended up taking out two snipers on a nearby roof before they could get any of our boys. I think in total we killed ten men outside, but by the time we got inside the compound, Brendan had already killed another ten inside. He was sitting up against the wall with an AR-15 that he'd manage to take from the enemy, the other hand in his lap. He'd been hit in the calf before his capture, nearly severed his gastrocnemius muscle, which made it difficult for him to walk, but it wasn't life threatening."

"I knew he had to be hurt somewhere else because he just didn't look right. He waved me off to check on the other solider that had been captured with him. The medics were capable of handling his injuries and he survived. As they evac'ed him to the helicopter, he grabbed my arm and told me that Callahan was hurt a lot worse than he looked."

"Once his man was safe, Callahan let me examine him. He had a hole in his femoral artery that he'd plugged with his damn finger, which is why he hadn't moved. He was tough. He'd apparently been stabbed vertically through the wall of the vessel, which as you know, meant that was a fatal wound if left untreated." Molly nodded. She'd seen the outcome on the post-mortem table many times.

"I tried to get him to get him up to evac him so I could get him to an OR., but you know what he said to me?" John did a fair imitation of the man's Texas drawl. " 'Doc, you and I both know I'll never make it to the FOB. You either fix this damn hole right here, right now, or take my dogtags back to my commander.'"

"I tried to give him some morphine since I didn't have any general anesthetic, but he refused, and told me to get to work. I had to cut a six centimeter incision in his thigh, right there on that dirt floor, with only a small headlamp, but I sutured that artery closed in record time and we got him back to the base and into the OR. The man didn't even flinch that whole time. I supposed it could have been shock, but I really think he's just that bloody tough. We kept up over the years."

Molly smiled at his obvious affection for the job. She finished seven more clips of ammunition before her arms were too tired to continue, but she was pleased at her progress. From twenty meters, she could kill a man. She would need more practice to get further, but she suspected Moriarty would be a lot closer to her than that when she killed him.

"Mmmmm… I rather enjoyed your lesson today, Molly," he said, his lips lingering on her neck. She could feel his hard length against her hip and didn't doubt his veracity.

"You are very devious, Captain Watson."

They both heard the door close loudly behind them. It was Lieutenant Callahan with a pleased expression on his face. "You've only got two minutes before I have to open up shop again, so you might want to wrap it up."

John seemed slightly embarrassed at being caught, and Molly would have been too, if Callahan hadn't given her an appreciative and playful waggle of his eyebrows and a wide smile, which she suddenly realized was all an act. Something about his eyes…like Sherlock. John busied himself with packing up the empty brass and securing the weapon, while Molly reached in her bag briefly before approaching the Lieutenant. She offered her hand to him, and he took it in his much larger one, not reacting at all as she palmed him her business card, which he accepted without betraying the pass. The two military men saluted each other, then clasped hands congenially before they departed.

In the cab, John fretted over her silence. "Molly, we need to talk about last night."

She'd known this was going to come up. "I'm clean, if that's what you're worried about. You drew the blood yourself three years ago." she said flatly, not tearing her eyes away from the window.

"That's not what I meant, but since you've brought it up, I'm clean as well, tested three months ago." He paused and considered her statement. "Three years?"

"Yes. I'm not as…There has been no reason to have further testing since that time."

John remembered that day. He'd walked in on her in her office trying to draw her own blood, and he'd offered to help when one of the tubes rolled onto the floor. Her wrists had been bandaged, he'd noted, and she'd said it was because her cat, Toby, had scratched her. He'd taken her at word then, but now something nagged at the back of his mind. He didn't think she'd been depressed, and if she were, she knew full well to cut those arteries vertically, not horizontally. Molly was neither stupid nor ignorant. She'd have been dead if that's what she'd been aiming for.

"And I had an IUD placed shortly after that, so no concerns there either." Her voice was clinical, detached.

"Good, good." John sighed, running his palms up and down his thighs twice. "But you know that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."

She finally turned to look at him. "You want to know what it meant, what it means. You want to discuss if this is the start of a long-term affection or if it was the satisfaction of a psychological impulse brought on by grief."

Her précis was very Sherlock-like. John shook his head. "I was going to say that I care about you, and I don't want to hurt you, so I will be here for you in whatever capacity you need. I know something is changing with you."

Her fragile determination cracked slightly. She took John in her arms, and he relaxed gratefully into hers. "I don't know what will happen, but if we are going to get through this, I'm going to have to change." They stayed like that for several minutes.

She finally kissed him on the mouth, then told the driver. "Drop me off at the next corner, please."

"Why are we stopping here?" John asked.

"Not we. Me. I need to talk to Lestrade. I'll see you back at 221B for dinner, okay? I'll pick up something on the way home." She kissed him on the cheek and got out before he could answer.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Molly walked into DI Lestrade's office filled with purpose. "Do you have a few minutes, Greg?"

He looked up from his computer, surprised to see her, but he stood and quickly crossed to her and rested his hand on her upper arm. "Of course I do." He motioned to one of the chairs and went to close the door. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm calling in my favor," she said, her face controlled and calm.

Greg sat on the edge of his desk, facing her. Whatever she was going to want, he had the feeling it was going to be a problem for him. A big problem.

"I want you to bring John and me into whatever cases you would have previously referred to Sherlock. If we are able to help you, you will credit your team for their work, and leave mention of us out of it. If we can't, you're no worse off than before. John will go with you to crime scenes like Sherlock did, he'll take detailed notes and photos, and you'll give me the complete file of evidence when you bring the body to the morgue, calling me in even if it's not my night to work."

Greg rubbed the bridge of his nose. "You and John want Sherlock's job?"

"Yes, but not publically, and I want you to make it look like I'm not involved in any way except my usual duties as pathologist. Do not mention my name to anyone while you are conducting the investigation."

"Molly… we both know that Sherlock was one of a kind. Do you really think that you and John will be able.."

"John and I worked with him for three years, and we are both highly intelligent. We learned from him. We'll never be as good as Sherlock was, but maybe we can do some good."

Greg ran his fingertips through his hair. "You're setting a trap for Moriarty, aren't you?"

"Of course."

"Are you going to tell me all of the plan? Or are you going to keep me in the dark like he did?"

"Do we have a deal?" Molly asked, impassive.

"Molly, last year, when I was separated, I asked you out on a date and you selflessly spent the evening telling me how to save my marriage. If you want a crack at Sherlock's job, you can have it, but please be careful."

"Thank you. And no, I can't tell you everything, or this won't work."

Greg smiled and shook his head. "You couldn't just ask me to fix a parking ticket, could you?"

Molly stood and kissed him on the cheek before heading to the door. "One more thing, Greg. We'll be having an affair." She walked out, leaving Greg standing there, mouth open and wondering what in the hell he'd gotten himself into.

On the way out of Scotland Yard, Molly's mobile rang from a blocked number. "Hello, Lieutenant. I've been expecting your call."


	14. Chapter 14

Warning: M-rated chapter with John/Molly smut. You've been warned.

Chapter 14

John had the table set and a bottle of wine breathing by the time Molly returned with take out. He was sorting through some boxes that Mrs. Hudson had clearly packed and he looked stressed.

Molly, however, was hopeful for the first time since Sherlock… left. Her plan was coming together, and after tomorrow's piece fell into place, the hard work would really begin. It felt good to have a purpose, to be in control of this for once in her life. John, however, didn't look as enthusiastic.

She came up behind him and worked her fingers into the muscles of his shoulders until he began to relax, and even moan at her touch. An excellent working knowledge of anatomy did have its benefits.

"If we stop and eat now," John asked, his eyes still closed as her fingers worked on the knots in his back, "will you promise to pick this up after dinner?" His stomach rumbled and the mood lightened.

During dinner, John described several cases they might accept, surprised that there were people that refused to believe Sherlock was guilty. They still hoped John could help them, and he was looking forward to the work. Molly related her conversation with Greg, as John nearly choked on his lo mein.

"I'm not really going to have an affair with Greg, John."

"Does he know that?"

"He'll figure it out," Molly quipped.

"Before or after you lure him to a seedy motel room?"

"I guess we'll find out good Lestrade really is." She winked at John and they finished dinner.

John washed the dishes while Molly dried. John looked at her and smiled. "You know, Sherlock would never have helped with the dishes. I find I rather like this arrangement."

"So you're ready to give up the life of fighting crime for domestic tranquility?"

"No, no," John said playfully. "But maybe we can still do this when I find a new place."

"A new place? Why?"

"I moved in here with Sherlock because I couldn't afford a place like this on my own. With him gone… I can't bear the thought of finding a new flatmate here."

Molly hesitated for a moment, then decided she was finished with being timid and uncertain. "I could move in, if you like. My lease is up soon."

John cleared his throat twice. "Don't you think that's it's a little.. ah… soon?"

"You need a flatmate, I can afford the rent, and we'll be working together regularly anyway. We'll need a place like this to collaborate."

John considered her points, as well as the ones she didn't make, about them. "Where are you going to, ah, sleep?"

"John… I…"

He pulled her into a hug. "There's no pressure, Molly. This is hard, on both of us. We'll just take it one day at a time, right?" She nodded and he felt the tension in her shoulders dissipate. "Mrs. Hudson and I should have his things boxed up and out of here in a few days."

"No!" Molly nearly shouted. "Leave it all the same, please," her voice was desperate, then quieter. "Please."

"Okay. We don't have to move anything. Not if you need it, love." Molly tried to swallow down the panic, but it threatened to overwhelm her. "We'll keep it all, Molly. We'll keep it," he whispered to her calmingly.

She nodded into his shoulder, and several deep breaths later, as she focused on how she had felt out in the cold- the stinging, biting needles of it on her skin, and it helped her calm her mind. "Leave the dishes. I believe I owe you some more work on your rhomboids."

"I love it when you talk dirty," he kissed her on the cheek, then the ear lightly, lowering his arms and giving her an opportunity to step away if she needed to. In their short time together, John knew Molly was frightened and skittish about intimacy, probably because Sherlock had taken every opportunity to damage her self-esteem. He had to let her come to him. "So how do you want me?"

She led him upstairs to his room, efficiently unbuttoned his shirt, and pushed it off his shoulders, avoiding his small attempts to turn the act into more. "Sit," she commanded, pointing at the corner of the bed.

John complied with a smile playing at the edge of his mouth. "Your wish is my command, m'lady."

Molly silenced him by working her fingers into the scar tissue of his left shoulder, finding the tight bands there and working them loose. Moving his shoulder to stretch the muscles in his upper back, she found sore spots he didn't realize he had, and he couldn't help but moan when she massaged them loose. His eyes closed, and he had a dreamy look on his face. "I think you missed your calling, Dr. Hooper." She stopped and rested her hands on his hips, her forehead on his upper back. "May I return the favor?" He gave her a chance to run if she needed it.

John turned around, letting her head touch his shoulder as he began by lightly running his fingertips over her upper back, waiting to see what she would do. The touch was personal, intimate, and tentative, but it asked for permission to do more. He worried as she pulled back slightly that she was going to bolt and he immediately regretted his presumption about her consent.

But rather than run, she kissed him, her touch urgent and needy as she pushed him down on to the bed and straddled his hips. Her mouth was everywhere—his neck, his ears, his chest, his nipples. He let her have her way with him until she grabbed his hands and put them on her hips.

"Please John, please," she was nearly frantic. "Please touch me." He sat up, Molly still on his lap, and covered her lips, his tongue sliding into her mouth rhythmically as he rocked his hips up against her.

"Tell me what you need, love. Tell me, and it's yours," he whispered into her ear as she scratched his back lightly with her nails.

"I don't want to think anymore. Please just make me stop thinking." She ground her hips against pelvis, feeling his hard length straining there, and lightly nipped his neck as she begged him. "Please."

He pulled her shirt over her head quickly, throwing it to the side, then buried his head between her breasts, teasing her nipples through the thin fabric that covered them, increasing the pressure until she threw her head back and cried out. John held her like that as she moaned but made no move to stop him. He pulled her bra down and latched on to her nipple, pulling with his mouth and teeth as she held his head against her. His free hand touched her firmly through her trousers, as she rotated her hips, begging for more contact.

Unwilling to wait, Molly stood while John sat on the edge of the bed and helped rid her of the rest of her clothes. John slid two fingers into her as she straddled his lap.

"God, Molly, you are so wet." He added a third finger, delighted by her whimpering as he circled his thumb over her clit. She ground herself against his hand while she pinched both of her nipples, her eyes tightly shut, lost to the sensations.

John moved her hands to his shoulders, replacing her grip on her nipples with his mouth on one, his left hand on the other.

"More, please… harder," she panted, and he obliged, pushing her over the edge. He held her as she screamed her release, then he withdrew his fingers slowly and tasted her sweetness on them. John was so hard his trousers were becoming seriously uncomfortable, especially with Molly's sated body still pressing down on his groin. He rolled her onto her back and quickly divested himself of the remainder of his clothes.

He eased her knees apart and licked and bit gently along her inner thighs, before settling himself between her legs and rubbing his tongue up and down her swollen clit. Molly bucked her hips up at him asking for more contact, but he teased her by making her wait while he barely touched her opening with his fingers. Apparently not satisfied with that, Molly guided his head up to hers and kissed him deeply, tasting herself all over his face. She moaned encouraged him onto his back, where she worked her way down his chest, lingering over his nipples, then taking the hard length of him into her small hand.

John hissed and Molly was afraid she'd done something wrong, but he reassured her. "Please don't stop, you feel so good."

"Show me, please," she placed his hand over hers as she gripped him, "show me how you like it." He momentarily wondered how experienced she really was, but he guided her, showing her how firmly to hold him and how to build up her speed. He closed his eyes and rested his head back, enjoying the incredible feel of her hands when he felt her warm, wet lips close over the head of his cock. He hadn't been expecting that, and thought he might come just from that sensation alone.

He looked down at her, so innocent, so unsure of herself. He almost stopped her, worried that she felt obligated, but he didn't have a chance as she enveloped his cock and slid half of him into her mouth. "Oh, yes," he groaned, clutching at the sheets next to his hips. Several more strokes and she had worked more of his cock into her throat, and she pulled his hands up to the sides of her face. He guided her head, careful not to ask too much of her, but she quickly gained confidence and soon had nearly all of him sheathed in the throat. At that point, he couldn't help himself, and he bucked his hips up towards her mouth. She kept pace with him, not complaining, but he didn't want to finish like this.

John broke the contact, and she looked up at him, worried. "That felt incredible, Molly, but I want to be inside you when we both come." She crawled back up his body and he sucked on her nipples until she moaned, at which cue he finally penetrated her with two fingers. His thumb rubbed her clit as she balanced herself with her hands on his shoulders. By her breathing, he knew she was getting close, so he tried to reach his nightstand for a condom. She whimpered at the loss of contact and rubbed her wetness over his cock.

"No, please, we're both okay, right?" She begged, frantic. He nodded and she sat back, guiding his cock into her. She set a rhythm that worked for both of them, rotating her hips with each downward thrust. John's fingers worked her clit, and the sight of her moving above him, gasping and taking such pleasure from him, brought him to the edge quickly. He pulled her hips down against him three more times, burying himself fully in her tight canal, and they both screamed as their orgasm ripped through them.

She collapsed down onto his chest, letting her inner muscles continue to spasm around his shaft. After few minutes of stroking her back, her breathing calmed and she nuzzled his neck as he pulled her closer and breathed in her intoxicating smell- peaches and vanilla soap and the sweetness of her sex. He could get used to having her in his arms like this every day and night.

"Better?" he asked, knowing they were both sated.

Molly lifted her head and shame suddenly played across her features. "Oh… John… I'm sorry… I didn't mean to…"

John held her chin gently while he kissed her, cutting off her apology. "Never be sorry for asking for what you need. Especially not with me. Ever."

When she finally met his gaze and nodded, she had tears in her eyes that spilled over onto her cheeks. John didn't have to be told why. He knew it was a mixture of some old and deep pain intermingled with her regrets over Sherlock, but he wasn't offended. He held her against his chest as she wept, pulling the blanket over them both.

John closed his eyes, thinking how sad it was that Sherlock had never let her in. He had never known what he was missing.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Molly scribbled a note to John and headed back to her apartment at four a.m. After an hour in the cold to help her focus, a quick shower and some coffee, she was waiting on the street outside of her flat by six. Mycroft was nothing if not punctual.

John had told her that Mycroft usually sent an assistant to take him to his office, so Molly was surprised that Mycroft himself was sitting in the back of the oversized car, reading the morning paper.

"And to what do I owe this inconvenience, Dr. Hooper?" He didn't bother to look up at her as she settled back into the seat.

"I'm going to kill Jim Moriarty."

Mycroft allowed the paper to fold backwards as he studied her, giving nothing away. "And what makes you think you're capable of doing such a thing? Assuming, that is, that you could even find him?"

"Because I have you to help me. And because I'm sure you'd like to remove the tarnish on your family name that your brother left by admitting to heinous crimes and then committing suicide."

He scoffed. "I've become quite adept over the years at managing the damage that Sherlock has done to our family name. I doubt anyone that matters will be surprised by his actions, or consider them representative of our lineage. I suspect they will be relieved." He flicked some imaginary lint off of his forearm.

Molly kept calm and confident. "So, in other words, you are waiting to see what information Sherlock relayed to me before his death that sufficiently emboldened me to even request your assistance."

Mycroft set the paper down, crossed his legs, and folded his hands in his lap, waiting.

"Are you willing to concede that Moriarty was not an actor hired by your brother, that Sherlock did not commit those crimes, and that Moriarty represents a clear and present danger to national security and stability?"

"Of course, but what I fail to see is why you are better suited to the task at hand than the other personnel that have been assigned to that end."

"Because I can become an irresistible target for him. You won't find him through the normal channels because he doesn't want to be found by mere mortals. He and Sherlock shared the same weakness. They couldn't resist the game, the battle of their superior intellects, and the pride that drew them in."

Mycroft looked bored. It was eerily similar to Sherlock's bored look.

Molly continued. "So John and I are going to go after Moriarty by interfering with the success of his ventures, with additional information provided by you, but we are going to conceal my involvement. No offense to John, but Moriarty will not believe that John did it all on his own. I will leave a trail of breadcrumbs for him. He will either believe that my intellect has previously gone unnoticed, or that Sherlock is somehow alive and feeding the information to Scotland Yard through me. Either way, Moriarty will come for me, and I'm going to kill him."

"And what 'additional information' do you think I'm going to provide with you with?"

"I want the surveillance footage provided by the cameras and satellite images that do not officially exist, as well as your computer analysts' uncanny ability to stumble upon private information without going through the judicial system for those pesky warrants. In exchange, I will find a way to avoid implicating you in the provision of such information to Lestrade."

"And if I refuse? I have been waiting patiently for whatever threat you think you can make."

"You won't refuse," Molly said confidently.

Mycroft raised his eyebrows and pressed a button on the side of the armrest. The car slowed and pulled to a stop.

"I'll also need you to make a phone call, Mycroft. And do be quick about it." She handed over a slip of paper with the details.

He looked at the paper and raised his eyebrows questioningly. "I have not agreed to help you, Dr. Hooper."

"Yet we both know you will do so anyway. You want Sherlock back almost as much as I do." She stepped out of the car and walked away without looking back.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Six Months Later

Molly sat on the roof of Sherlock's flat, disappointed that the cold was no longer there to welcome her. As the first tendrils of light peeked over the eastern horizon, she thought about how far she had come in such a short time. She couldn't remember how long it had been since she had slept more than three or four hours per night, but she'd become accustomed to ignoring the fatigue. She couldn't remember the taste of crisps or biscuits, or much of anything other than chicken, fish, and protein shakes.

Once he'd received Mycroft's unrestricted approval, Brendan had made good on his promise of finding and destroying all of her weaknesses. She'd endured fractures, a plethora of bruises continually littered her body, and there were very few muscles that didn't hurt on a nearly continual basis. But it felt good to finally be stronger, faster, and just less… pitiful. She knew how to break an elbow with only eight pounds of force, how to use her relatively small size to her advantage in any fight, and more importantly, how to still think through pain, through beatings, and through whatever cruelty Moriarty would surely inflict upon her. She was harder. Colder. She hoped it would be enough.

The new Molly rarely allowed herself to dwell on the past, but that day, she remembered her last night together with John, five months before. They had been tender and slow in their lovemaking, and when they held each other afterwards, John knew.

"So this was goodbye sex, was it?" he asked her quietly. Molly remembered feeling so grateful that he was not angry. They'd had both known that their physical relationship was a way to cope with their loss and that it would come to an end.

"Yes," Molly said simply. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be, Molly. I don't understand what you are doing to yourself or why, but I will be here for you. You're not alone in this, you know."

"Where I'm going, John, you cannot follow," She said, just before she'd fallen asleep in his arms, knowing it would be the last time. Alone was better, for her and for John. It was less likely John would die and it made her care less if she did.

Molly finished her protein shake as the sun came over the horizon, absentmindedly fingering Sherlock's coat, which she had draped over her lap. She had heard nothing at all from him. No texts, no visits, no calls, not even a message through his homeless network. He wasn't coming back, and certainly not for her. She hoped he was happy somewhere but she admitted the possibility that he was dead. It didn't matter now, though. She was committed completely and Moriarty was showing an interest. There was no going back.

As their caseload increased, John spent more time travelling, which bothered his girlfriend, Mary. Molly introduced them soon after she stopped sleeping with John, knowing that Mary would take care of him. Mary was a nurse at Bart's, so they had a lot in common, and Mary was kind and loving—what John deserved and what he needed, and what Molly couldn't give him any longer. Molly was pleased for them both, but her change made her an outsider when it came to their happiness. It didn't hurt to see them together, she had just separated herself from those emotions when they no longer served any useful purpose.

Molly sighed. She missed the cold. It was hard, relentless, utterly unforgiving, and everything she wanted to be. It was everything she had admired in Sherlock.

Molly looked at the marks on her wrists from the ropes Callahan used to bind her hands the day before. Three years ago, she would have had a panic attack and collapsed into a stuttering heap at the thought. Now she knew how to dislocate a joint in her hand to get free and find the place in her mind where the pain couldn't reach her, where she could control her body without fear. What was it that Sherlock had said? The mind was the only thing that mattered; the rest was just transport.

"Molly?" Before he said her name, she'd known who was there. She'd heard the door to the roof open and she knew the tentativeness of John's footsteps, the type of shoes he wore, and why he was there.

"John. How are you?" She said, never taking her eyes off the London skyline.

"Tea?" He passed her a steaming cup, which she took from him silently. "You haven't been home in four days. Molly? Don't I even get a little smile?"

She regarded him for a moment, then flipped the switch in her mind that allowed her to show the old Molly Hooper without becoming her. This was the one she practiced for her inevitable meeting with Moriarty. "Oh…John… thank you for the…. For the tea… I hope it wasn't too much… trouble." She half-smiled and looked away quickly, flustered. Two seconds later she leveled her gaze back on John, the mask of calm indifference firmly back in place.

"Stop that. Stop that right now." John looked uncomfortable. He paced ten feet from her, pointing at her accusingly.

"I'm sorry," she said, trying to mean it, but it wasn't worth the effort to make it truly convincing.

"You can't do this anymore, Molly. It's not right, it's not healthy, and I am very worried about you." He stopped pacing but didn't approach her.

"We have had this discussion before. If my presence here upsets you, I will leave, but I would very much like to stay." _I want to stay here, around his things, in the room that still smells like him. It's all I have left. It's all I will ever have of him._

He gave up and sat down, rubbing his forehead. "I don't want to argue with you. I'm your friend, you know. I just came up to tell you that Mary and I are getting married."

"I know. You left the receipt for the ring on the table. She is a fine woman and she loves you very much. You deserve love and a happy ever after, John." She let her eyes wander over the rooftops, hoping Moriarty, or even Sherlock had some nostalgia for rooftops. Seeing either one of them would be a welcome herald of the end of her time.

"Thank you."

"When is she moving in? Or are you moving in with her?" This was the information that really mattered to her.

"I'll be moving in with her next month. 221B is your home now… even though you don't treat it as such."

"What do you mean by that?" She sipped the tea, focusing on keeping her mind and body calm.

"Molly," he moved to sit next to her and reached out to put his hand on her shoulder, but he changed his mind at the last minute and dropped it to his side. "You never actually moved in. You occasionally sleep here, but never in _his_ bed and you won't move yours into the flat. You refuse to alter or relinquish anything of Sherlock's. The place is a veritable shrine to a dead man, Molly. He's not coming back, love."

They'd had this discussion before. "I know. The way I do things helps me focus."

He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. "I know you think Moriarty will come after you specifically, but he could just as easily come after me. Have you thought about that?"

The sky was lightening up. Soon it would be time for her to meet with one of Sherlock's homeless network and continue her education in London's underworld, and then on to work at Bart's. She sighed. "He won't come for you." she said with a tired certainty.

"You can't possibly know that that lunatic will do."

She met his gaze with dispassionate eyes. "You won't play the game with him. If he takes you and tortures you, you will hold your chin up and stoically take the bullet to the head like the soldier you are. You won't beg, you won't plead, and you won't provide him with any sport. He will come to me for that."

"You never said anything before about him torturing anyone, thought I don't put it past him." John was frustrated and worried, and it showed. "What makes you think that's what he wants from you?"

"Because he enjoyed it so much the first time," Molly said, standing up and heading for the door without looking at him again.

"What the hell does that mean? Molly?" he called out to her, but she let the door slam shut behind her.

She left Sherlock's coat folded neatly on his bed, then climbed out the fire escape and landed lightly on her feet in the alley. After a short five kilometer run, she handed over a hundred pounds, and headed underground for a two hour tour of steam tunnels, abandoned railway stations, and access shafts.

Lestrade was waiting for her when she arrived at Bart's, but she put him off, preferring to make him wait while she showered and focused herself for the day's tasks.

"John called me this morning," he said casually.

Molly set about organizing her equipment and pulling her first corpse of the day onto the slab, not bothering to respond. Greg would get to the point sooner if she didn't feign surprise or ignorance. Or interest.

"He's worried about you."

She pulled back the sheet covering the thirty-two year old female, long brown hair, thin, dressed in a skirt and jumper that matched ones Molly used to wear. Molly appreciated Jim Moriarty's sense of humor… his real one, not the one he showed her when they were 'dating'.

"I'm worried about you too, Molly."

"Don't be." She closely examined the woman's hands and wrists, noting the unusual ligature marks. Before Lestrade took more of an interest in them, Molly covered the woman's wrists and the series of dots bruised into her skin there where she'd obviously struggled against the tight metal chains that had been around them. She already knew their message, it just didn't make any sense to her, other than the fact they were directed at Sherlock This was the second victim this week with the same MO, same marks.

"Dammit, Molly. You are my friend, or you used to be before Sherlock died and you lost your mind. John and I want you to see a psychiatrist." None of the woman's poorly-manicured fingernails were broken, so she clearly didn't struggle enough.

"Greg, I have reassured your wife on two occasions that we are not actually having an affair, and that our meetings are solely for the exchange of information as electronic means are potentially insecure and there aren't enough murders in London to ensure you will be here with sufficient frequency." She scraped underneath the woman's fingernails, sealed the vial, and labeled it for further analysis.

"This isn't about Kate and you know it. This is about you, and whatever it is that you are doing to yourself. I don't know who you are keeping company with but this has to stop." He reached for her arm, intent on showing her he'd seen the bruises, but before he knew what happened, she had his wrist painfully up behind his back with enough pressure on his humerus to let him know she would dislocate his shoulder if he moved.

"Now, Greg, _friend_, we can have a very polite discussion while I autopsy this woman, or you can go upstairs to have your shoulder put back in its socket if you touch me again without my permission." She emphasized her point by twisting his wrist and finding the pressure point on his forearm with her thumb.

He'd heard that calm, factual tone of voice before, usually in psychopaths and trained killers. "Alright!"

She let him go and resumed her work like the incident had never happened. "Anything else, Detective Inspector?" Lestrade straightened his shirt and smoothed down his nicotine patch while he backed away from her. Molly removed the woman's blouse and examined her chest wall, finding a 2.5 cm linear incision between the fourth and fifth ribs. She knew she'd find her message lodged inside the heart just like last time. She removed it with forceps, careful to keep part of her attention fixed on Greg's position and his body language as he paced, mostly with his back to her since he didn't like looking at the bodies being cut open, especially the women.

"I'm not going to be a party to this anymore. I'm not giving you any more cases until you get some help, and if you refuse, I'll talk to the Chief of Staff about having you removed."

Molly unrolled the small blood-stained laminated cylinder from the woman's body and glanced at the jumbled mix of symbols. Her heart skipped a beat. "You do that. As it turns out, I don't need you anymore." She slipped the message into her lab coat pocket, knowing if she continued to ignore Greg, he would leave and she'd be able to translate the Cistercian numerical notation.

On her way home at midnight, she phoned Mycroft and gave him the time and address the messages had revealed. "He assuredly won't keep me at that location, and he'll abort if he thinks I'm being followed. So take your team off me… don't play dumb with me. A two year old could pick out your men in a crowd. As soon as you can confirm that he is in the building, level the place." No one would miss an abandoned factory, and this late at night, no else would be hurt. John would miss her, she knew, but he had Mary. He'd get over her.

"Understood," he said simply, then hung up.

Molly gave twenty pounds to the homeless woman sitting on the corner of Baker Street, and the woman surprised her by holding out a piece of paper in return. "For you, Miss Molly," she said quietly. Molly took the note and slid it into her sleeve before heading inside Sherlock's flat. John was right, it was never really her home, but the empty intimacy with Sherlock was all she would ever have.

The message was a long series of numbers in couplets, the first numbers were spelled out as words and the other was numerical. The four envelopes he'd given her when he left made were the obvious choices. The first was the number of the envelope, the second the number of the word. Molly wondered briefly why Sherlock thought she needed such a simplistic code, but then she realized that he'd given them to her before she'd read every one of the books in his flat twice, including the nine on codes and ciphers.

_Moriarty is after you. Run now. Tell Lestrade and John. They will help you. Please. _

Six months without as much as a whisper that he was okay and now this. Every day she'd worried for his safety, not knowing if he were dead or alive, and now this. Just this. He truly had no idea how he affected her, especially with his absence, but at least this way he never would. After four years, Molly no longer expected his opinion of her to miraculously improve. He would never love her and there was no longer a point in pretending otherwise. She had forced herself to accept that reality five months ago.

She burned his note and the four cipher keys in the gas from the stove and realized this was the first time she'd ever been able to resist the compulsion to follow his orders. The taste of freedom was unexpectedly bitter.

Molly changed into a simple but elegant little black dress, arranged her hair conservatively at the base of her head, and carefully secured it with a delicate gold filigree cage. With the silencer secured on the Glock Sherlock had given her, she placed it in its custom holster designed to look like a handbag. After washing the few dishes in the sink, she left the unopened bag of diamonds in the pocket of his Belstaff and slipped the watch into the opposite side. She lingered over the worn-soft fabric one last time and inhaled the faint scent of him that still permeated it. She tucked an apologetic note under John's pillow and left a message on Mary's voicemail to congratulate her on their engagement, asking her to take good care of John. It was time for her to go.

She strapped a knife to her thigh, refreshed her lipstick, and took one last long look at 221B Baker Street. One way or another, she wouldn't be returning.

She looked over the two cabs at the corner, and recognized one of the drivers from Mycroft's surveillance photos as one of Moriarty's associates. She deliberately chose that one. She settled in for the half hour ride to the provided address, texting Mycroft with an update and activating the tracker, which she knew would never really help. Moriarty wasn't that stupid. He'd find the electronics well prior to her destination, or negate them by taking her underground or using a Faraday cage. She didn't expect the gun or knife to last either, but their presence would reinforce his view of her lack of competence. They were useful.

Just before they left the main road, Molly saw the electronic billboard. It was titled "Can you find the princess before it is too late?" with her hospital ID badge photo and an IP address beneath it. Under that was written "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

That's when Molly noticed the unusual condensation on the inside of the windows and the small clouds of gas from the heating vents. She didn't fight it, and instead took it deep into her lungs, recognizing the hot sweet taste as diethyl ether.

_Game on._


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

The billboards were ubiquitous in London and the news outlets had picked up on the story, since the same billboards appeared all over London and the police had no missing persons reports matching the photo.

Lestrade recognized her immediately of course, and he broke multiple traffic laws getting to her flat. Her shift was over, and in spite of her nearly dislocating his arm, he was very, very worried. What this what she had meant at the morgue?

The loud and persistent pounding on the door to 221B drew a shout from John, who was in the middle of shaving before his date with Mary. "Coming! Give me a minute, will you?"

Lestrade barged in as soon as the door opened. "Where is she, John? Is she here?" He brushed past John and looked in the kitchen and then in Sherlock's old room. "What the hell?" He said, noticing that nothing had changed since the previous occupant. "I thought she lived here."

"That all depends on what you mean by living. This is Molly's address. And what did she do now?" John wiped the shaving cream off his face.

"Where is she?"

"Greg, she doesn't tell me where she goes, when she'll be home, or much of anything outside of case details for months."

"You haven't seen the billboards." Greg pulled up an image on his phone for John. "They're all over London and most of Europe."

John went pale and slumped down into his chair. "Oh, God, Greg, we have to find her." He was probably hurting her while they sat there and worried. "She told me this morning he was coming for her."

"Who?" Greg asked, his mind running in circles, but Dr. Watson was no longer paying attention to him. He was staring open-mouthed at the door that Greg had left ajar.

"Moriarty," said Sherlock's quietly angry voice.

John stood up and moved quickly towards the man he thought he had buried six months before. Sherlock's hair was longer and he'd lost weight, but it was him, John thought, and he was real. John closed the distance in just a few short steps and his right hook dropped Sherlock to the floor.

"You son of a bitch! You let me think you were dead for six months! You lied to me, up there on that roof!" John was shouting, his face reddening. "And this is your fault! You did this to her!" Sherlock waited patiently on the floor, knowing if he got up before John was finished he'd just hit him again. He knew he deserved it. "When she thought you were dead…"

Sherlock met John's eyes. "She knew I was alive, John."

"What did you say?" John replayed in his mind everything that he and Molly had shared that first month. The tears, the sex, the intimacy.

"She knew I was alive, the entire time. She helped me make it look real." Sherlock knew he was on dangerous ground. Saying the wrong thing now could cost Molly her life.

"But she…" John didn't finish the thought. It was all too private and suddenly too painful.

John stepped over Sherlock, pulled him up by his collar, and hit him squarely in the face three more times before Lestrade pulled him off. Sherlock made no move to defend himself. He knew John needed to get this out of his system if he was going to be of any use.

"Enough, John," Lestrade said, pushing John away from Sherlock and standing between them. "This son of a bitch," he pointed to Sherlock, still lying on the ground, wiping blood from his mouth, "is the best chance we have of finding her."

John wasn't convinced as he tried to side-step Lestrade to get back to beating Sherlock, but Lestrade shoved him to the side with a warning. "If you want to beat him half to death later, I'll not only allow it, I'll help. But right now, Molly needs him, so knock it off."

"How could you?" John spat at Sherlock. "How could you ask Molly to be bait for Moriarty? She would have done absolutely _anything_ for you. Anything. I swear to God that if he hurts her—"

Sherlock pulled himself up to his knees, waiting for the room to stop spinning before he attempted to stand. "What are you talking about? What has she done?" Sherlock's panic was escalating, and it was making it difficult for him to think. "Tell me!" He shouted.

John ran his hand over his scalp and sat down in his chair, exasperated, not knowing where to begin. Greg offered Sherlock a hand up. "When was the last time you saw her, Sherlock?"

"Fifty-seven minutes after I jumped, when she finished showing my 'corpse'. When the three of you left the room, I left."

"And you've had no contact with her whatsoever since that time?" Greg asked.

"None. I've been trying to get to Moriarty for six months. I have spies in his organization, I've neutralized several of his important associates, but some of them have died under suspicious circumstances…"

"I'm not even going to ask what that means." Greg rubbed the bridge of his nose, clearly getting a headache.

Sherlock continued. "But he's either been very dead, or very careful. He shot himself in the head on the roof of St. Bart's, the day I jumped. What did you find? There was nothing in the media about a body there."

"There was no body, no blood, just your mobile. Are you sure?" Greg's finger twitched near the pocket where his notepad resided.

Sherlock sighed, his fists clenching at his sides. "Then it was a ruse, a theatrical trick. I should have checked more thoroughly."

"Why didn't you? Too busy lying to me?" John chimed in. "You did lie, didn't you, about those heinous crimes they accused you of? You didn't try to kill those children."

Sherlock wished he'd been able to have this conversation some other way, under different circumstances. "John. I may be a sociopath, but even I have standards. I do not kidnap children or poison them. I did not commit any of the crimes Greg and his colleagues accused me of." He turned to Greg and said, "sloppy investigative work, by the way. If you had bothered to do a thorough forensic examination of each crime scene, and apply rigorous logical analysis to the evidence…"

"Sherlock!" Greg stopped him, hands up and palms out towards the consulting detective. "I don't give a fuck about whether or not you did those things. Do you know where Molly is?"

"Possibly, but I can't be sure. I need more information. I did not instruct her to go after Moriarty, much less to act as 'bait', as you say. I sent her a message earlier today, immediately after I discovered that her photograph had been transmitted to multiple advertising firms accompanied by large payments for immediate distribution. I told her to run. When I left I provided her with certain…resources, should she need to leave suddenly for her own safety. That was the only time I have contacted her since the morgue."

"So you didn't tell her to…"

"Were you not listening? I did not ask, insinuate, instruct, advise, or otherwise coerce Molly Hooper into doing anything other than moving on with her life and trying to be happy." Sherlock looked at both men sternly. "What has she done?"

John and Greg looked at each other for a moment, but John was too upset and frustrated to answer, so he motioned for Greg to proceed. "If you've been monitoring the papers and television, I hope you noticed that our case conviction rate did not suffer as much as expected."

"You paid attention while I worked," Sherlock interjected.

"Molly and John have been the ones working the cases that I previously gave to you. Molly exploited a debt that I owed to her to demand access, which I reluctantly agreed to."

Sherlock looked at John for confirmation, and he nodded his head. "You and your team claimed credit, Molly and John were never mentioned."

"She insisted it be that way," Greg admitted. "She sent John to the crime scenes, she handled the body once it got to the morgue, I gave her the complete case files, and she and John provided me with leads and evidence."

While Sherlock was rarely impressed with the mere mortals, he looked at John and nodded. "Well done." But back to the task at hand, "Why did that…"

John finally joined in. "Now that I know you didn't die, you bastard, I think she set it all up from the beginning to make Moriarty think that you were still alive and feeding her information to take to Greg, so he would show himself by coming after her to get to you. My presence at the crime scenes, while not publicized, was not concealed to any great degree, so therefore, I was too obvious."

"I met with her weekly at different hotels. She insisted we make it look like we were having an affair," Greg said, putting the pieces together in his mind. "She knew eventually Moriarty would have her followed, didn't she? This made it look like she, not John, was the one with something to hide."

"That's rather clever of our girl, isn't it?" Sherlock actually looked pleased, momentarily forgetting her current circumstances.

"Not the point, Sherlock," John said. "But then she mostly stopped eating and sleeping, and she spent more and more time away from home, and…"

Sherlock raised his right eyebrow. "How do you know how much time she spent at home?"

"Right, ah, she moved in here a week after you, ah, died."

It was Lestrade's turn to let his mouth hang open, but he recovered quickly. "Why?"

John was getting more irritated. "It doesn't matter! She's hardly ever here." John gestured around the living room with his hands.

"It matters. I need to know everything if I'm going to find her." He began searching the flat. "I already called her mobile seven times. She left work two hours and twenty-seven minutes ago but has not returned there, and she was seen getting into a taxi one hour and eighteen minutes ago. I need to know how she set this up. She will have left us a trail."

Sherlock moved efficiently towards his room but stopped in the doorway, stunned that it was completely as he had left it except for his wool coat resting on the corner of the bed, a light pink floral duvet folded neatly underneath the bed, and a plain navy blue suitcase next to his wardrobe. His clothes were still intact in the closet though a few hangers of Molly's clothes were tucked into the far side. His drawers were untouched. The bathroom was also the same, save for a few toiletries sitting unobtrusively on the side of the shower, but even Sherlock's toothbrush was still in its original location.

"John?" Sherlock called out as the other two men hadn't bothered to follow him into his bedroom.

"What?"

"Where did she sleep?" Clearly it wasn't in his room, Sherlock thought as he headed back to the living room to hear John's answer. Then he stopped mid-step, pondering the obvious answer.

"Now is not the time to…" John said, hesitantly.

"Oh, I see," Sherlock said, his voice dropping. He forced his tone into neutral and made his face impassive. He had no right to be jealous or in any way put out by this news. They were both healthy, normal adults. It was normal, even natural for two people in extreme situations, sharing a common emotional bond as well as maintaining regular interaction with each other due to their work on cases. Sherlock had just never considered that Molly and John would…but John was at least a worthy choice. It seemed her taste in men had improved considerably, and perhaps his words to her that last day did not go unheeded. He knew he should be pleased, but he wasn't. He drew a connecting hallway between John's room and Molly's in his mind palace, trying to fill the corridor with representative reasons for its existence while simultaneously bricking up the link from Molly to his own. She was not his. She had moved on.

"Sherlock!" John was yelling at him from close up. "We don't have time for you to wander in your mind palace right now. Snap out of it."

Sherlock's eyes went wide for a moment before he was able to bury the emotions in the deepest, darkest corner of his mind. _Alone protects me. Alone protects them._ He refocused on John. "Then what? Where was she going? And with whom?"

"I don't know. I tried to follow her a few times but I think she knew, and she ditched me every time. Then later, she'd ask me not to follow her."

"Which you agreed to? I'm disappointed." Sherlock walked around the living room and noted that every book was still in its original location, though some further forwards or backwards than they had been when he left, with two distinctly different rings of dust around their bases. They'd obviously been touched, but not disrespectfully. The same was true in his room.

"The last time I followed her, I was more careful. I found her sitting on your goddamn grave in the middle of the night, whispering to your headstone. She stayed there for three hours, until she got so cold she was shaking. I think she ran all ten kilometers back to Baker Street—I had to take a taxi to ensure I was back before she was. She always held your fucking coat when she went outside at odd hours, but she never put it on, even when she was freezing. I found her half a dozen times on the roof, hypothermic with blue lips and fingers, clutching that goddamned coat, but she would never put it on." He slumped down into his chair and buried his face in his hands. John knew something horrible had happened to Molly, and not just today.

Sherlock whisked the Belstaff off his bed and searched the pockets. Clearly she'd left it there for him for a reason. He felt the bag of diamonds there, most if not all of them were present, but he didn't remove it from the coat. It was better John and Greg did not ask how he acquired them. The pocket watch was unexpected. He turned it over in his hand, rubbing his thumb against the spot he habitually touched when he thought of her. There was a similar yet narrower mark next to it. Why did she… if she was having sex with John… surely she had moved on and this habit was not significant of any kind of continued attachment. He rubbed the silver one last time and closed his eyes, willing his conclusions to be wrong, but of course, they were not.

"She went willingly. With Moriarty, that is. She knew he was coming for her and she went with him," Sherlock said, closing his eyes and trying to force his mind to consider the questions of how and why instead of the stabbing pain in his gut whenever he thought about what Moriarty would do to her before his interest waned and he finally killed her. "Why?" He flew into the kitchen, noting the ash near the burner of the stove, the still damp dishes in the drying rack, and the empty container of protein powder in the rubbish bin.

John failed to answer, so Sherlock bounded over to him and shook him by the shoulders, shouting. "Why? Why would she go with him? There's no signs of a struggle, the coat was placed purposefully and not by Moriarty. What was she thinking, John?"

"I don't know! She told me he'd be coming after her soon, but she didn't say she was looking forward to it."

"Come on, John! Molly's a very simple person. Her motives are not complex and rarely are her actions well thought out. You've observed her since my departure. It shouldn't be difficult to discern her motives, even for you."

John's expression was hopeless. He clearly had not been paying attention to the important details of his… well, whatever she was to him. Topic for another time.

"Lestrade? You have a rudimentary understanding of motives and behavior."

Lestrade shrugged off the insult as he was, surprisingly, still used to it. "The last time I saw her, she nearly dislocated my shoulder because I told her I was worried about her behavior. I don't know what the hell happened to her, Sherlock, but she changed after your death, or whatever it was. She's not the same person you left, and she's not simple."

Greg almost missed the twitch of Sherlock's eyebrow. Was that an unconscious flinch? Sherlock would never claim responsibility for Molly's behavior. Being a sociopath meant never having you are sorry.

"I need more details than that. How? What was different? You easily have thirty-five kilos on her, considerably more upper body strength, and presumably a modicum of training in close quarters fighting, or do they not teach that at Scotland Yard anymore?"

Greg sighed and shook his head. He wasn't embarrassed that a woman bested him physically, he was concerned. "It was partly surprise, but not all of it. I told her that unless she got some help, mental help, that I was going to stop giving her cases, and that I'd talk to the hospital about suspending her pending such evaluation. She ignored me at first, then told me that she didn't need my help anymore anyway."

"When? What was she doing?"

"Post mortem on a murder victim, second one in a week with the same M.O. At a certain point she just dismissed me. I tried to raise her sleeve slightly, to let her know I'd seen the bruises on her wrists, to convince her that I knew she wasn't okay. And before you ask, no, I don't know why she had bruises. I barely brushed her sleeve and she had my arm locked behind my back… it was like she was toying with me as she held it there and twisted, but her angle was very precise. She knew that just another few ounces of pressure and I'd be in a sling for a month, or worse. I didn't even think about trying to get her off me. She was fast and she knew what she was doing, Sherlock. There was absolutely no margin of error. I think she would have finished it if I hadn't agreed to play nice, and I honestly don't think it would have bothered her to hurt me. But then she simply let me go and returned to the post mortem as if nothing had happened."

Sherlock listened with rapt attention as his mind played over the possibilities. "Fascinating." He rolled the visual of that scenario around in his mind, seeing it as it likely happened. _Molly, you are full of surprises. What have you been up to? _"Where was she in the post mortem? Did she finish it?"

"She threatens me physically and you want to know how far she got on the body?"

"Yes. How far?" Sherlock was up on his feet and heading for the door.

"I don't know," Greg shrugged. "I left for my own safety."

"Come along, John, we have a case," Sherlock called out, halfway down the stairs.


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: Skip this chapter if graphic descriptions of autopsy or injuries bothers Cyou.

Chapter 18

Sherlock flashed one of Greg's old badges to the pathologist on duty to have the body taken out for examination.

"Where the hell did you get that?" Lestrade demanded.

"Keep it, I have more." Sherlock tossed the badge over his shoulder to Lestrade.

With a flourish, Sherlock unzipped the body bag and tucked the edges underneath the woman, who he noted looked remarkably like Molly. Of course it wasn't her, but it was Moriarty's style. There was no Y-incision through the chest cavity, just a small linear wound in the left chest.

"Unusual marks on the wrists and ankles are consistent with a chain, one that was clearly custom-made, could track it down if necessary, but…" Sherlock looked closer at the pattern of tiny subcutaneous hemorrhages on the ankles, they were grouped on each link of chain and the pattern varied, but never more than six. Braille was hardly a challenging code, so why was it there? Sherlock shoved Greg out the way and re-examined the wrists under magnification. "There's a code in the hemorrhages, it's Braille. At first I thought it was meant for me, but it was for Molly. He underestimates her, using such a simple device. Oh that's good, that's very good. This is child's play for Molly. She's read all the books in my flat, at least twice."

John wanted to ask how Sherlock knew that, but it just didn't seem relevant. Sherlock looked at the chest again, probing the edges. "What was the cause of death on the last one? Did the last woman have the same chest wound?"

Greg nodded. "Yes. Molly listed the cause of death as exsanguination from a stab wound through the heart, same ligature marks on the wrists and ankles, though no mention was made of any code or pattern to it. It could have been different."

"That's accurate, but neither died from the chest wounds. Those were placed post mortem. John, crack the chest if you would." Sherlock threw a pair of gloves at John and put a pair on himself. The pathologist started to protest, but Sherlock threw up a hand to stop the man, glancing at the name on his white coat. "Look, Dr. Harrington, is it? You're going to go away and push some paperwork, or I'll tell your superiors that you're the reason the nasal cocaine anesthetic spray keeps going missing from the pharmacy. Just nod if you understand." The pathologist avoided Lestrade's stare as he nodded and left the room.

John laughed. "It's good to have you back, Sherlock," he said as he cut through the sternum with the bone saw. "What did the message say, anyway?" Sherlock tried to ignore the question. John repeated himself.

"Hmm? Get the chest open, will you?"

John stopped working and Sherlock finally had to look at him. "What did the message say?"

"It says 'come out, come out, boasting knight,' " Sherlock said quietly, holding the woman's left wrist. "The other side says, 'don't keep me waiting, Sherlock' "

"What does that mean, exactly?" John asked, his tone neutral and careful.

"It means that Molly's plan was working. Moriarty thinks I'm alive, but he doesn't know for certain, which is why he wants me to come to him. He has Molly as incentive, though I don't know how he got the idea that…" He didn't finish the thought because it would be a lie.

Greg was glad for the distraction from sound of bone cracking as John pulled the chest cavity open. "The wording is similar to the billboard," he said, finally taking out his notepad and using it as an excuse to turn away from the body.

Several squishing sounds later, John said excitedly, "There. See it? The incision is from a very sharp, thin knife, at least six inches long."

Sherlock poked at the heart muscle. "The wall of the ventricle ragged on the endocardial surface while the pericardium is smooth. Same on the pleural surface of the chest wall, but not the skin." John and Sherlock exchanged an excited glance. "Molly removed something from the chest, something she knew was there. It was roughly cylindrical, but not smooth at the edges," Sherlock thought aloud. "But what? What? Where did you put it, Molly?" He paced around the room, throwing open drawers and looking in the other refrigerated compartments.

Sherlock found himself rubbing the pocket watch as he thought about her. He pulled it slowly out and realized he never opened it back in the flat. He knew it was the place Molly would place a private message to him, and a small slip of paper fluttered out into his hand.

He read the message as John and Greg watched him, knowing better than to try to read it over his shoulder. Sherlock closed his eyes and slammed his fists down on the stainless steel table, startling the other two men into taking several steps back.

"Shut up, both of you!" Sherlock shouted at them. John picked up the paper and showed it to Greg, as Sherlock's fists collided with the table a second time.

John recognized Molly's handwriting immediately.

_S-_

_Thank you for the Shakespeare. Know that I am no longer Caesar's coward. _

_Keep John, Greg, and Mrs. Hudson safe. Do not come after me. Let me take care of this one for both of us. _

_-M_

They waited for Sherlock to process as John and Greg failed to grasp the meaning of the message. "I know where she is," Sherlock finally said. "There isn't much time." He rushed out the door of the morgue and took the stairs two at a time.

"What did she mean about Caesar?" Greg asked impatiently, hoping that Sherlock had had some miracle revelation that would get Molly back.

Sherlock barked at them in his frustration. "Am I the only one who can read? It's Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene 2.

_Cowards die many times before their deaths. _

_The valiant never taste of death but once. _

_Of all the wonders that I have yet heard, _

_It seems to me most strange that men should fear, _

_Seeing that death, a necessary end, _

_Will come when it will come." _

"But what does it mean, Sherlock?" John asked, holding open the taxi's door.

"It means she's going to die. And she's going to take Moriarty with her," Sherlock said, realizing that saying it aloud made it seem so final.

"Where to?" the cab driver asked the three men.

Sherlock barked the order, "Tower of London."


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

"Cabbie, I need your mobile phone," Sherlock said matter-of-factly.

"I'm not allowed to…" the man said, clearly unwilling.

Sherlock gave an exasperated sigh and shoved a thick stack of bills through the slot. John estimated it was at least five hundred pounds. "Now give me the phone," Sherlock said again, clearly unhappy at repeating himself.

While Sherlock pounded away on the browser, Lestrade pulled out his mobile to call in the proverbial cavalry. Without looking up from what he was doing, Sherlock grabbed phone from Lestrade's hand and threw it out the window.

"What the Hell, Sherlock? I need to get a team down there to find her," Greg yelled, silently promising to himself to help John dispose of Sherlock's body if anything happened to Molly. "And we need to get the public out." Lestrade motioned silently for John to hand over his mobile phone, which Sherlock also threw out the window without looking up.

"Shut up unless you have something useful. The Tower has been closed all week for repairs."

"Sherlock," John began, knowing his friend was in a dangerous mood.

"Cabbie, stop the car. They are getting out."

The cab started to slow, but Greg told the man to keep going.

Sherlock finally looked up and the two of them. "If you two are going to come along on this quest to rescue our fair maiden, you're going to do exactly what I tell you."

John had reached the point where he could no longer stand not having the whole picture. Sherlock was eight steps ahead and getting more difficult to follow blindly. "First you are going to tell us how you know she is in the Tower of London, one of the most heavily guarded buildings in the country by the way, and why you just referred to this as a 'quest' and Molly as a 'maiden'."

"Fairy tales? Surely you remember Moriarty's successful attempt to discredit me? To coerce me into killing myself to keep you, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade alive?" Sherlock waited a half second for them to grasp his reasons for jumping off the roof at Bart's. "In the fairy tales, where do you lock away the kidnapped princess? In the highest room of the tallest tower of the strongest castle of the land. She's in the White Tower. Moriarty's nostalgic for his last victory over me, and now that he thinks I'm alive, he will want a rematch the game, starting as it did before, in the Tower of London." John and Greg spent the next thirty seconds trying to wrap their minds around that.

"Just to confirm," Sherlock said, letting out a ragged breath, looking out the window and away from John, to whom his question was directed. "You have first-hand knowledge that she is not a maiden?"

John huffed. "You're jealous, aren't you? That's rich." John's voice broke with emotion as he continued. "You have no idea how much that woman loved you, Sherlock. You killed her spirit. You turned her into… you."

"Please, John, that's ridiculous," Sherlock kept working, typing on the cabbie's mobile.

John refused to let up. This was too personal. "It isn't. You killed her slowly, by inches, with your callous disregard and your manipulative backhanded complements. She knew, by the way. She knew you only said nice things to her when you wanted to use her and her position at the hospital." John saw Sherlock close his eyes and clench his jaw, and he couldn't help but move in for the kill. "What did you do to her to secure her help faking your death? Did you tell her that you'd be back for her if she risked her job, her career, her freedom, and her pride for you? Did you tell her you loved her so she would help you?"

"Are you finished?" Sherlock could feel the anger crawling just under his skin, trying to rip him apart on its way to the surface. He clenched his fists in a vain attempt to control it.

"You did this to her, Sherlock. All of it. If she dies, her blood is on your hands." John sat back in his seat and let Sherlock work on that for a while. Greg pretended he wasn't paying attention, or better yet, that he wasn't even in the cab at all. There was no way he was getting in the middle of this.

Sherlock sat with his eyes clamped shut, forcing the anger and the fear down into the overflowing pit in the basement of his mind palace. He was dangerous and unpredictable when he was like this.

John knew he'd pushed Sherlock too hard, but someone had to. It wasn't enough just to save Molly physically.

"Agreed," Sherlock said simply.

"What?" John and Greg said in unison.

"If she dies, I agree that it will be my fault alone. But I want you to know that I asked her for her help and she gave it willingly, without incentive or false flattery. I did not lie to her, and I asked her not to wait for me. I asked her to find someone who could love her as she deserved. Someone good, and decent, and kind. Someone not… me."

Sherlock looked out the window so they wouldn't see his unshed tears. Caring made him weak, vulnerable. Gods, he hated this feeling. Molly needed him to be strong. John and Lestrade looked at him like he'd grown three heads.

"And I approve, for what it's worth," Sherlock said quietly.

"Of what?" asked John.

Sherlock sighed. "It should be you, with Molly. You'll take care of her. Give her what she needs."

"Great, Sherlock, except that I'm due to marry someone else in two months. Molly left me after just three weeks for your goddamned ghost."

John wouldn't have asked a woman to marry him, given the likely courtship period taking into account his age and previous short duration of relationships, after less than four months… so that would have meant they were together just after he jumped. That was clearly when John would have needed someone like Molly the most. _Take care of John._ He'd asked that of her, quite unfairly in hindsight.

"Yes! I'm a horrible person, undeserving of anyone's love or affection, including Molly's. I have routinely done many terrible and impolite things; things I will neither apologize for nor regret. Later, we can enumerate my many character flaws and personal failings to the point of your satisfaction, but right now," Sherlock shouted, "I need to get her back!"

Sherlock leaned forward, getting into John's personal space. "I am far more like Moriarty than I will ever be like you. Every person, every child that I saved from the monsters out there is alive because _I_ _am_ one of the monsters. I know how they think, what they want, what they will do, why they do it. I've gazed into the abyss long enough and hard enough that we are old and intimate friends." Sherlock's face settled into the cold, hard, unyielding mask that he wore when he let the evil out to play. The car stopped momentarily, waiting to turn. Sherlock's voice became calm and perfectly controlled. "Now get out of the car, both of you. I have work to do."

John and Lestrade left without another word.


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: This chapter is very much M-rated. If descriptions of non-consensual sexual contact is a problem for you, please do not read.

Chapter 20

Sherlock easily slipped past the bored perimeter guards, stepping out of the shadows only at the entrance of the White Tower. The man posted by the door was clearly Moriarty's man. Sherlock glanced around quickly, seeing the boots of the real guard sticking out from the bushes nearby, and strangely, another dead man just to the side of the door. He had two gunshot wounds to the head, likely from a .45, in very close proximity to each other, but no powder burns. The guard at the door carried a 9mm. Interesting.

"I believe I am expected," Sherlock said to the man.

He stepped aside to allow Sherlock to enter, but he made no move to follow. Lestrade would undoubtedly be there shortly, so as Sherlock brushed past him, he took the .45 from the man's belt and shot him point-blank in the chest. He left the body at the threshold and hurried up the stairs, killing two more of Moriarty's men in quick succession, finishing the second one off with his own knife.

The fourth floor was empty except for two items. The first was a computerized plexiglass airlock device attached to the doorway up to one of the turrets, large enough to accommodate only one person, and rigged with three sets of explosives, the largest one clearly visible beyond the door where it could not be disarmed. There was enough C4 there to blow them all to hell, including Molly above.

The second item of note was a large screen plasma television, broadcasting the same screen that Sherlock found on the cabbie's mobile phone. It was a single field for him to type into, labeled "Username". He hadn't been able to focus in the car with John's prattling, but now that he was alone and it was quiet…

He recognized John and Lestrade's footsteps on the stairs, they'd stopped to examine the bodies. He could nearly hear their brains mulling over who killed them and whose side they were on. Sherlock typed in "The Virgin", and the screen changed to a stationary camera view of Molly, unconscious, gagged, and chained to a metal table, fully clothed, but he was unable to assess her injuries from that single view.

Moriarty appeared on screen, his head looking no worse for the gunshot wound. He was smiling happily. "Sherlock! How nice of you to accept my invitation. But I must say I was worried that you wouldn't come."

"You knew I would."

Moriarty casually strolled over to Molly's still form and ran the back of his hand gently over her cheek, almost lovingly. "From all of her pathetic whining, I was concerned that you didn't even know she existed. And even she and I had our last date…" Moriarty trailed a finger across her breast while watching Sherlock through the CCTV. "You didn't call, you didn't write. I was very disappointed in you, Sherlock. You ruined my fun. Well, maybe not _all_ of it." He leaned down and kissed Molly on the mouth, biting on her lower lip. Sherlock found it difficult to watch, but he was relieved that Molly appeared to be unaware of the violation.

"I'm here now. Let Dr. Hooper go and I'll come inside," Sherlock said just as Lestrade and John reached the top of the stairs. Sherlock put his hands behind his back and waved his hand to the side, trying to keep the two men out of the frame of the camera.

Moriarty smiled, but was not amused. "You know better than that, Sherlock. We're going to play a game. If you answer my questions correctly, you get to come inside. If you are wrong, which I anticipate, then you will stay there and watch while I reacquaint myself with the lovely Dr. Hooper."

Sherlock's anger focused him. Molly may have been foolish to taunt Moriarty but he would not allow harm to come to her. "By all means, let us begin."

"Ah, I see Dr. Watson and Detective Inspector Lestrade have arrived. Hello boys!" He waved at them cheerfully before turning back to Sherlock and whispering, "Wwich one of them did that to your face?"

"Dr. Watson," Sherlock said.

"Though it looks like he must have forgiven you. How touching. Or is he here because of his feelings for your little pathologist?" Moriarty leaned down to Molly and closed his eyes, inhaling deeply.

"You're stalling," Sherlock said, "and I'm getting bored."

Moriarty picked up the keyboard from a nearby chair and another prompt appeared on the screen. "What does her hair smell like, Sherlock? Have you ever noticed? Have you ever been close enough to her?" He paused. "She wanted you."

"Enough," Sherlock dismissed him. He typed in the answer quickly.

"Excellent. Only two more, then you can come inside and play," Moriarty said, looking pleased. "Oh, and don't bother to try to bypass the security on the doorway. The whole tower is rigged with vibration sensors, which are now," he pressed a button on the keyboard, "active." If you run, drill, move the cover on the control console of the door, put people on the roof, allow anyone to move within a fifty meters of the tower, the angry dragon will come out to play."

Lestrade's voice interrupted as he held a newly-acquired mobile phone to his ear. "Abort, the place is rigged with explosives and vibration sensors, minimum safe distance is a hundred meters. Do you hear me, abort?" He hung up.

No one moved. "Don't sound so surpised!" said Moriarty. "There's always a dragon guarding the princess. Isn't that right, Sherlock? Let's see if Sir Boast-A-Lot can slay the dragon and rescue the fair maiden." He turned his attention back to Molly, and slid the shoulder of her dress down to her upper arm, letting his fingertips play lightly across the pale skin there. He bent his head and licked her from her shoulder to just under her ear. "Or shall I say fair lady? Maiden would be inaccurate."

"Yes, yes," said Sherlock. "Get on with it."

"Does that make you uncomfortable, discussing sex in the context of your little plaything? Oh wait, she was _my_ little plaything." He laughed at his own joke.

Sherlock said nothing, waiting. If he refused to respond, Moriarty would have to move the game along. The box came up on the screen, and Sherlock again waited for the question.

"And don't lie, Sherlock. I'll know."

Sherlock realized that Moriarty had already asked the question. "Yes," Sherlock typed in.

"Excellent," said Moriarty. He picked up a switchblade and sprang the blade free. "But now on to the real fun. Time to wake up, Molly!" He passed smelling salts under her nose and she stirred, but her eyes remained closed. Moriarty turned back to the camera to address Sherlock. "It's so much more exciting when she struggles, don't you think?"

The next pass of the smelling salts caused her eyes to open, and as she took in her surroundings and Moriarty's face hovering in front of hers. She screamed.

Sherlock closed his eyes and tried to stay focused. Caring is not an advantage. Moriarty had found the Achilles' heel he didn't realize he had. It would have been so much easier if Molly had been a stranger. He wouldn't have cared about her pain. Moriarty was going to hurt her and make him watch. Sherlock planned to kill Moriarty slowly and painfully when he got through that door, and he would savor every moment.

"The next question, if you please." Sherlock's voice was steady and his face impassive.

"Patience, Sherlock. You might even enjoy this." Moriarty cut the fabric from Molly's arms, the sound of the ripping material reverberated in the silent, stone room. "I know I will." He cut upwards from the hem to the waist, then finally to the neckline, and jerked it roughly out from underneath her as she screamed through the gag, shaking her head back and forth and trying to get away from Moriarty's touch. Sherlock noted the panic in her eyes, and his heart rate increased.

"A switchblade? Your knife skills are mediocre at best," Sherlock commented offhandedly, hoping to distract Moriarty and himself from the barely clad Molly Hooper. "You should have used a filet knife."

John cleared his throat and said quietly, "Sherlock?"

Sherlock looked behind him, taking in the shock on the other two men's faces. "Not now, John. And both of you, turn your backs. She wouldn't want you to see her this way."

Greg averted his eyes, but John was staring at Sherlock with intensity. "Sherlock, I think that…"

"I said not now!" Sherlock barked at his friend while his voice was no more than a whisper.

Moriarty didn't look away from his victim. "More efficient yes, but more challenging to conceal. Besides, Molly remembers this blade, don't you darling?" Molly cringed as he brought the knife to within an inch of her face. She closed her eyes and tried to look away, her screams reduced to whimpers. "Ha! I have to admit, I'm rather sentimental about our time together, too, even if Sherlock didn't come out to play then. Clearly, he just didn't care enough about you three years ago to lift a finger over your… misfortune."

Sherlock was becoming more impatient in his need to distract Moriarty from what he was doing to Molly. "I have no idea what you are specifically referencing, but if you'd like to elaborate, I will enlighten you as to my thought process."

"Sherlock!" John's tone was commanding, reminiscent of his military officer past. Sherlock finally turned around, knowing there was no other way to shut John up. "I think… I think that he…"

"Spit it out, John, I'm very busy here," said Sherlock.

John lowered his voice to try to conceal his words from Moriarty's microphone. "I think Moriarty raped Molly, three years ago. In fact, I'm certain of it. We can talk about the evidence later, but for now, trust me."

Moriarty either didn't hear the exchange, or he ignored it while he ran the blade of the knife over her chin, down her neck and chest, lingering over her black lace bra, then down the flat plane of her abdomen. "Your taste in men is highly questionable, Molly. Sherlock barely knew you existed. Still, at least I had you first." Moriarty looked right into the camera as he ran his fingers across her thin bikini panties, then down underneath them.

"What did you do to her, Moriary? Tell me!" Sherlock was visibly agitated, and Moriarty looked so pleased with himself at Sherlock's loss of control.

Moriarty's hand rotated in small circles over Molly's most sensitive area as she looked away from the camera, her expression becoming more distant as her mind tried to hide from what was happening to her body. He stopped and removed his hand to grasp her chin tightly between his thumb and fingers. "Molly, Molly, Molly. I know you never filed a police report, which frankly, I don't blame you since they would never have believed you anyway… but I ensured that Sherlock would have a case that brought him to St. Bart's during your shift the very next day. Perhaps I overestimated his powers of observation, or…" Moriarty threw back his head and laughed.

"What did you do to her?!" Sherlock screamed.

Moriarty smiled at Molly, and it was simultaneously sinister and amused. "You didn't tell him! Did you?" Sherlock saw her look into Moriarty's eyes and shake her head no. "You disobeyed my explicit instructions, and you didn't tell him. You concealed my carefully crafted trap!" He backhanded Molly in the jaw, and her whimpering increased. Sherlock could hear her begging through the gag for him to leave her alone. "All this time, you let me believe that Sherlock was even more cold and insensitive than I originally thought, not bothering to lift a finger or even look put out at his little pet pathologist becoming the victim right under his nose. Do you know how much more work it was to get to him after that?"

Sherlock's mind rapidly flashed back three years, and replayed every interaction he'd had with Molly while she had "dated" Jim Moriarty:

_The business card, the underwear, the slightly effeminate mannerisms, Molly's unusual joy at dangling her 'office romance' in front of him, how she'd leaned in to Moriarty when he'd put his arm around her—no, too early. He fast-forwarded two days to a Sunday morning. Molly was eighteen minutes late for work, she was wearing a long sleeved cotton shirt under her cardigan, it was a new shirt, the factory creases at the wrists were still present, so she hadn't washed it first, and it was too long in the sleeves. She kept holding the cuffs against her palms, but that didn't conceal a slight crinkling noise... bandages? Why had he not cared enough to ask her about it? _

_She spent that day at the microscope in her office, examining slides, and running samples on the lab equipment upstairs. She avoided the area where he and John worked throughout the day. She ate her lunch outside of the morgue, which was unusual, but not implausible. It was the day her nerves around Sherlock worsened, but he attributed that to the fact that he had pointed out the obviously flawed nature of her personal relationship at their previous encounter, and she knew he was correct. She said exactly seventeen words him and John, less than her usual average of forty-eight. She didn't offer him or John anything from her trips to the cafeteria. _

_The same shirt, different cardigans, the same behavior during her next two shifts, then over the next three weeks, things improved, but she wouldn't meet his eyes for almost six months. She was hiding. He knew she was, he just assumed it was because she was embarrassed at her dating blunder and that Sherlock had seen it so quickly while she had not. He never considered it was something else. How did John know? Why didn't he say anything? Why didn't she say anything? Why didn't she trust him? _

He turned around to face John, his voice low. "When did you know?"

"Only just now, for certain," said John. "I knew something was wrong after you… died, but she wouldn't talk about it."

Moriarty clearly heard them. "I've got an idea! Let's see if she'll talk about it now." He pulled the cloth gag down to her neck. "Come on, Molly," Moriarty was lightly caressing her nipple through the thin fabric of her bra while the point of the knife indented the skin of her lower neck. "Sherlock wants to know all about our time together. Be a dear and tell him."

"I did tell you, earlier today, in the note. I thought I was clear."

Sherlock was momentarily stunned. Moriarty was molesting her, and she wanted him to leave her there? What?

Moriarty slid his hand back underneath her skimpy panties and stroked her firmly. She tried to get away from his hand, but the chains limited her movement. He slid her hips down slightly and forced two fingers into her. She refused to look at him.

"If you tell him everything, and I mean everything, Molly, when I'm finished with you I will just shoot you in the head and end your miserable existence. If you don't," he leaned down to Molly's ear, but didn't lower his voice. He wanted Sherlock to hear. "I fully intend to fulfill my promise of skinning you alive for your silence."

Sherlock knew at that moment that Moriarty had no intention of letting him into the room. He wanted Sherlock to suffer by standing there powerless and watching the torture and slow death of someone close to him, then live with the knowledge that he couldn't save her. "John, take Lestrade and get out of here. Now."

Lestrade finally spoke. "He will never get out of here alive, Sherlock. The whole building is surrounded. But we can't leave without setting off the explosives."

"Then turn away and cover your ears. Give her some privacy. Please." Sherlock didn't wait to see if they would comply before turning round.

"Interesting little conundrum, isn't it, Sherlock? You could just let me have my evil way with her, then kill me when I try to leave. Or you could try to answer my last question and come in here and face me man to man, or psychopath to sociopath if you prefer, but I think I have the immoral high ground in that one."

He stepped back from Molly and licked his fingers, making a show of licking them off for Sherlock. "Mmmm. So tell me truthfully, have you had her, Sherlock?" Moriarty punched a few keys and the answer prompt appeared on Sherlock's screen. "I want you to tell me what she tastes like. It's so hard to put into words…" He licked another finger. "But you're an omnipotent genius who can even cheat death. So tell me, Sherlock Holmes. What. Does. She. Taste. Like."

Sherlock's brain furiously ran through the biochemistry, but there were too many unknowns, and frankly, it wasn't an area of study frequently reported in scientific publications. He cursed his paucity of sexual experience, all of which was hazy and incomplete due to the cocaine and heroin of his youth. Sherlock turned around, and lightly and carefully walked three steps towards John, who had turned his back.

Sherlock tapped his friend on the shoulder, thankful that both men had been following his instructions. "Did you hear his last question?"

John shook his head, so Sherlock repeated it. "It's not that simple, Sherlock, as you may or may not know."

"Let us assume that I do not know."

"It's not something that you could pick off of a menu. It's complex and indescribable." This was the most awkward moment John would ever have, he was sure of it.

"Are you speaking in generalities for the gender, or Molly specifically?" John heard Molly whimpering in the background and couldn't help but look around Sherlock at the screen.

Moriarty wagged his finger at them. "No cheating, now. And Dr. Watson, I have a whole new opinion of you. Well done!" He shook his finger at John before turning his attention back to Molly. "Let's give them some incentive, Molly." Sherlock turned around as Moriarty unchained Molly's ankles and pushed her knees apart.

Sherlock held John by the shoulders and looked him in the eyes. "Take off your shoes, and you and Lestrade get out of here." John started to shake his head, but Sherlock interrupted him. "Vibration detectors are not that sensitive. Between the road, the ventilation system, and the normal settling of the stone in the Tower…" Sherlock stopped mid-sentence, thinking about the stone.

John shook him out of his mind palace, pointing to the screen. Sherlock stared for ten seconds, then ran off at full speed for the stairs, taking them three at a time.

"Sherlock!" John yelled at him.

"I know where she is, John. There are no sensors, and she's not behind that door."

John and Lestrade took off after him and Lestrade drew his gun. When they reached the lowest level of the Keep, Sherlock was gone.


	21. Chapter 21

A/N: Again, if graphic descriptions of violence and mention of non-consensual sexual contact are offensive to you, do not read. You have been warned.

Chapter 21

_Finally,_ Molly thought. _I'd have had this bastard gutted twenty minutes ago if Sherlock had just followed instructions. _She kicked the switchblade out of Moriarty's hand at the same moment she pulled the metal stabilizing pin from her hair's bun cover, stabbing the pointed end of the autoinjector into his shoulder. The few seconds while Moriarty registered what had happened were crucial, Molly knew, so she curled her thumbs towards her palms and rotated her hands against the chains, pulling sharply downwards. The pain was sharp and intense as the ligaments gave way and her first carpometacarpal joints dislocated, but she embraced it, pulling the pain down deep into her chest and using it to focus.

She slipped the chains off her wrists and rolled into a standing position, kicking Moriarty in the head as she moved. The race was on to get to the knife before Moriarty, or his lecherous cameraman, could find some way to stop her. The cameraman was bigger and he had a gun. She pounded her right hand down on the switchblade to reset the bones, relieved when they snapped back. Molly knew the ligaments were disrupted, which would affect her grip for stabbing, so she threw the knife at the cameraman, catching him in the throat.

That left Moriarty behind her, but he was on her before she could fully turn. Apparently he had another knife, because she felt the hot, wet blood pour out as he flayed open her left forearm, the point of the knife glancing off the bone. He had been aiming for her chest, Molly knew, but she managed to get her arm up into a blocking position in time.

"I'm going to enjoy bleeding you dry as I fuck you," Moriarty said, lunging at her again, but Molly was ready for him. She turned out of the way of the blade, grabbed his forearm as she spun around, and she relished the feel of his ulna shattering as she hyperextended his elbow. He dropped the knife, but reached towards his back with his left arm while he staggered backwards.

Molly launched herself at him, forcing him up against the wall while she drove her knee into his groin. She grabbed Moriarty by the hair and pulled his head down while she raised her knee again, breaking his nose. He crumpled to the floor as Molly smoothly removed her gun from the holster at his back.

"Molly!" There was loud pounding on the door. "It's Sherlock. Can you hear me?"

Molly ignored him in favor of her prey. Moriarty moaned tried to roll over, but Molly kicked him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. "What's the matter, Jim? Feeling a little weak?"

"You." He looked up at her like he was seeing her for the first time. "What did you do to me?" He turned over on his side, trying to gather his feet underneath him, pushing himself up on his one good elbow. Molly shot both of his kneecaps and he screamed in pain.

She leaned down to whisper in his ear, as he collapsed back against the stone floor. "Alpha bungarotoxin. See, I beat you at your own game. Even if what I'm going to do next doesn't hasten your death, which I sincerely hope it doesn't, you are a dead man in less than twenty minutes. There's no escape this time, Jim."

"Poison? I underestimated you. You aren't boring after all." He laughed again, but then coughed repeatedly.

Sherlock banged harder on the door. "Molly? Molly? If you can hear me, open the door. I can't get through. Talk to me." His voice was frantic.

Moriarty smiled at her in admiration. "But just look at you now. You're enjoying this. If I'd known how easy it was to bring you to my side, I would have raped you sooner and killed Sherlock right after."

Molly took two steps back, tucking the gun underneath her left arm, and picking up Moriarty's knife from the floor. It was shorter than the first one, only ten centimeters, but as she tested the edge of the blade, she found it to be exceptionally sharp. It would suit her purpose. Her left hand wasn't working adequately due to the dislocation, so she tried to reduce by slamming it onto the handle of the blade against the floor, without success. It didn't matter. The poison was doing its job, and she'd mostly disabled Moriarty anyway.

The pounding on the door and Sherlock's voice both receded out of her notice as she focused her attention on Moriarty. She had to hurry as she wanted him fully conscious for the next part. She knelt down next to him and slowly, almost seductively, undid the buttons on his shirt, pulling it out from his pants to expose his ribs. She smiled at him, meeting his gaze, as she removed his cufflinks and tugged up his shirtsleeves, using the knife to slice the edge of his suit coat and pull it upwards as well.

"You think you can to go back to Sherlock now, Molls? Do you think he'll suddenly find room in his heart for you now that you've done what he couldn't?" Moriarty licked his lips suggestively. "He will never love you, and you know it."

Molly knelt down onto Moriarty's left palm and slid the point of the knife under the skin, opening it slowly as she watched his face. The poison had made it nearly impossible to control the muscles in his extremities, but the look on his face was one of sexual bliss as he held her gaze. Carefully avoiding his radial and ulnar arteries, Molly systematically threaded the blade underneath the tendons and lifted up on the handle, severing them one by one, ensuring he could never, ever touch her again.

"Do you know why he'll never love you?" Moriarty's voice was hoarse as she moved to the other arm. "Because in order to beat me, you had to become me." He laughed again, but he was starting to choke on his own saliva.

Molly straddled his chest to make certain that he could see her eyes, as he would likely not remain conscious for long. "I know, but it was worth it," Molly said, driving the knife into the far left side of his chest, between the fourth and fifth ribs, slicing cleanly through the muscles of the chest wall, then extending the cut towards the breastbone. She watched as the lung collapsed, retreating towards the middle of the chest, a smile on her lips.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Sherlock could hear voices on the other side of the door, but he couldn't get through. The door was solid steel, set behind the stone on all sides, and the recessed keypad for the lock meant he couldn't remove the faceplate to get to the wires. He called out to Molly, pounding both fists on the door, but either she couldn't hear him or couldn't get to the door.

Then Sherlock noticed the entry field on the alphanumeric keypad. It had the same color and appearance as the ones Moriarty had given him on the computer upstairs. He rested his head against the damp, cool metal. It could be the same. He forced his mind to calm as he slowed his breathing and heart rate. Moriarty deliberately asked him a question he could not answer so he would watch Molly's torture and death, all the while forcing Sherlock to acknowledge his ignorance of women and sex. He wanted Sherlock to admit that he was either completely unaware of her long-standing affections for him or therefore woefully unobservant, or to admit definitively, in front of Molly, that she meant nothing to him. Sherlock knew the latter would destroy any shred of hope Molly had at a moment when she needed it the most, and the former was untrue.

He cursed himself for allowing his relationship with Molly to make it to this point. He should have sat her down years ago and tell her that he was flattered, but he was married to his job, and had no interest in traditional relationships with anyone. He could have offered her what passed as his friendship, Spartan as it was, and made it clear to her that he did not think of her in that way. But he didn't. _Why didn't I? _It had taken less than twenty-four hours to inform John of this simple fact. Why didn't he do the same for Molly? He could have saved her from all of this. Moriarty would never have taken an interest in her. Sherlock hated himself. He used her. He used her attraction to him, he manipulated her, and he was callous and cruel to a woman he should have respected as a colleague.

Sherlock wasn't sure when his feelings for her had changed. It was gradual, he knew, at least up until the day she told him about her father and offered her help. He'd underestimated her and her ability to read him. It made him feel exposed somehow, so when she got too bold, he pushed her away. At least until that last day, when he admitted to himself that he trusted her, and he didn't have to be so… guarded around her, that she wouldn't judge him harshly. Molly asked nothing in return for all those years, until just before he left for the roof.

And now, Molly could be dying behind this door, or already dead. The voices from the other side became deafeningly quiet, and he wished he had been able to save her from Moriarty and from himself. He stroked the keypad with his finger, wondering what it would have been like if he'd told her the truth the day he fell. She could at least have taken one pleasant memory of him to her grave, but at the time it had seemed too cruel. He wished she'd know that he did _see_ her, not just as a colleague, but truly as a woman when he had held her. She was warm, and soft, and her fingers were gentle as she touched him. He closed his eyes and recalled the delicate peach smell of her hair, the smoothness of her skin, the hope mixed with uncertainty in her eyes whenever she looked at him.

Sherlock hated himself for his cowardice. She would have tasted like heaven.


	23. Chapter 23

A/N: If graphic descriptions of violence are a problem for you, do not read. You have been warned.

Chapter 23

To Sherlock's amazement, the door slid open with a soft hiss. "Molly?" He entered cautiously, his gun drawn, expecting Moriarty to be either ready for him, or already gone. Instead, he found Molly, still in her lingerie, but nearly covered with blood, her fingers in a large hole in Moriarty's chest. A wet gurgling noise came from Moriarty's throat, but he wasn't otherwise moving, as the dark pool around him slowly expanded. His gaze was fixed on Molly, a small smile on his lips, though Sherlock didn't think he was actually conscious.

Molly didn't glance up at his entrance. She rolled Moriarty partway over, and slashed through more muscle, making the dark cavern inside of his chest visible. Sherlock couldn't make sense of what he was seeing. Moriarty's wrists were a ruined mess of flesh, his right elbow lay at an unnatural angle, and the middle portion of his legs were drenched in blood and flatter than they should be. The chest though… surgeons used that type of incision to do internal compressions of the heart in dire circumstances… was she trying to save the man who raped her?

Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock caught a slight movement, but before he could react, Molly picked up the gun she'd placed next to her on the floor, the one Sherlock had given her when he left, and fired two quick shots into the head of a large man in the corner. He stilled immediately, and she silently replaced the gun on the floor next to her as if it had been no more than a momentary inconvenience. She tried to pull the hole in Moriarty's chest open wider by spreading the ribs, but Sherlock noticed there was something wrong with her left hand. He scanned the room and found no other threats, so he cautiously approached Molly. Other than her dysfunctional and swollen hand, she had a large open wound on her left forearm, which was still bleeding, the blood dripping down her hand to join Moriarty's on the ancient stone floor.

"Molly? What are you doing?" Sherlock said cautiously, taking another step closer to her.

She finally looked up at him and he startled at the look in her eyes. It wasn't his Molly looking back at him.

"You're hurt, Molly," he said carefully, reassuringly, inching closer to her. "John's nearby. You need medical care."

She was making very little progress with Moriarty's chest. Her fingers were saturated with blood and slippery. Sherlock took another small step towards her, and in one smooth motion, she picked up the gun and aimed it at Sherlock's chest.

"Shut up and stay away from me, or leave." Her hand did not shake at all, Sherlock noticed. Her stammering and insecurity around him were gone. The Molly he knew would have made an attempt to cover up and run away from him if he'd walked in on her so scantily clad. This Molly was not afraid. Worse though, he knew the look in her eyes. It called to him from his past. He knew where she was mentally, because he had been there himself as a child, and he'd fought returning to that dark place in his mind many times.

This time, however, Sherlock invited the dark, deep calm to envelop him. "You want his heart. I'll help you." Molly searched his face, and satisfied with what she found there, she nodded and lowered the gun.

Sherlock came up behind her as she returned to pulling Moriarty's ribcage open, until her back was flush with his chest. He ran his hands down her arms until they rested over hers. His long arms easily reached around her smaller ones and he rested his fingers between hers, over the ribs, then he pulled until he felt the bones give way, leaving a gaping hole. The heart was still beating, albeit slowly.

Molly reached inside, holding the knife, until most of her forearm disappeared inside. She worked, twisting the arm several times, while Sherlock held the access open. A moment later, a rush of blood poured out, and she pulled Moriarty's heart out, holding it in her small hands as it finally ceased twitching. Sherlock's hands supported hers from below. When it was quiet, she placed the heart on top of his chest and stabbed it repeatedly. Without pausing, she grasped the handle with both hands, and drove the point into Moriarty's eyes, three times each, the sound of the blade crunching through the bone of the orbit reverberating through the quiet room.

Sherlock heard fast, heavy footsteps in the passageway, recognizing John and Lestrade by the sound. Molly dropped the knife and had the gun up in front of her as the two men rounded the corner. They raised their hands in surprise.

"Molly," Sherlock's voice was low and sensual as he spoke softly into her ear. His chest was still pressed up against her back, and his hands rested against her forearms gently, not forcing her arms down, but merely encouraging it. "It's John and Greg. They don't want to hurt us." Sherlock gave both men a stern look of warning and shook his head. Lestrade slowly put his gun down onto the stone floor, and John kept his hands visible.

Molly looked back at Sherlock like she just realized he was really there, and she let him take the gun from her. He shrugged off his coat and wrapped it around her shoulders, knowing that as the blood on her cooled, she'd become hypothermic quickly in the cold, damp air. He also had to admit to himself that he didn't want the other two men to see her without her clothing. "Will you let John see your left arm?"

"I'm fine," Molly said, her voice steady and strong.

John approached slowly, afraid he would startle her. "It's okay, Molly. It's just me. Let me take a look." He searched her face for clues to her health and mental state, but it was her eyes that scared John the most. Far from being frightened or in shock, she was fully cognizant. She extended her arm examined her wound, unconcerned about the blood dripping from it.

"Sherlock," said John, urgently, "we need to get her to hospital."

Molly picked up her shredded dress and used her teeth and right hand to tear a long strip of fabric off, and began wrapping it around her arm. "Here, let me," John said, wrapping it tightly around her arm.

Sherlock stepped away and pulled Lestrade out of the room. "You are going to fix this. You are going to fix it so Molly does not have to face any kind of inquiry and what happened here will never be a matter of public record. Nod if you understand me." Lestrade nodded. "Now that you have seen firsthand what he was capable of, am I correct in assuming that you will be of assistance in clearing my name? I would very much like to go back to not being dead."

"Yeah, alright. But how? I was on your side before, you know."

"Then pay attention. The entrance to this tunnel is concealed well, and in a moment, we will lock this door and leave. Right now, you will direct your attention to the ultimately fruitless search for the explosives and vibration sensors that you reported to your people. Tomorrow, you will find the bodies down here, and you will attribute their murder to one of their underlings. You will receive a package with additional evidence, apparently posted to the Yard the day of Moriarty's demise. Tomorrow afternoon, you will hold a press conference in which you and Donovan will expound upon my innocence, given the newly revealed evidence, of which I have much. The day after, you will make it known that my death was all part of a carefully planned official operation to find Moriarty and uncover the truth. I will publically thank Scotland Yard for their dedicated efforts. Tell me you understand."

"I understand. But what about the physical evidence with the bodies? Molly can't be the pathologist, she was involved."

"No one knows that except you, me, and John. I think we can all keep a secret."

"Sherlock, she's in no shape to go to work." Greg finally looked into Sherlock's eyes. "You saw what she did."

"Molly is stronger than you give her credit for. And I will be there with her to ensure she gets through this."

"What about the adverts?"

"A harmless solicitation to create interest in a new video game. I will have the website rewritten by midnight. I will take care of all the details."

"But…" Greg glanced at Sherlock's blood-covered hands, and unconsciously wiped his sweaty palms on his pant legs.

"Do this for Molly. Please. If that isn't sufficient, do it for me. I will help you catch the monsters again and this will all be forgotten soon enough. No one will look too hard, Lestrade. No one feels badly when an evil man dies, do they?" Sherlock walked away, and Greg couldn't believe he was going to go through with this.


	24. Chapter 24

A/N: Thanks to everyone who took the time to review, specifically Rocking the Redhead, Dan3n3rysTargary3nStark, MizJoely, and Miggs.

Chapter 24

Sherlock led Molly and John out through a little used gate to avoid all of Mycroft's and Lestrade's people. Sherlock washed the blood from his hands in a fountain but Molly made no move to towards the water.

"Give us a moment, John," Sherlock said, keeping his eyes fixed on Molly.

John sighed. "Fine, whatever, Sherlock, but she needs to get to hospital very soon." John turned his back and walked twenty steps away, into the shadows.

Sherlock stood close to Molly, nearly touching. "Molly. Keeping up appearances is very important or they will be suspicious. In front of John and Lestrade you need to appear upset, in shock, tearful," he said to her in that seductively low voice so John would not overhear.

Molly pressed her left hand down on the edge of the stone fountain, covered it with her right hand, and then jumped up, allowing all of her weight to come down hard. Sherlock flinched when the bone snapped, expecting her to cry out, but her eyes were cold when she looked at him, moving her thumb in small circles. "You never pretend."

"Indeed." He let the thought hang there in its silence, knowing it wasn't entirely true. "They've never known me any way but how I am now. I meet their expectations and John tells me when I step too far outside of them. Now I'm telling you." He led her over to the fountain and pushed her hands into the water, not waiting for her to consent. "I'm taking care of this, Molly. I will take care of you, but you have to trust me."

She allowed him to scrub the blood from her hands, his fingers surprisingly gentle and considerate, especially over the swollen and bruised areas. She wished he had touched her like this… before. "John already knows," she said. "He saw me flip the switch yesterday and I didn't bother to hide from him back there."

"Like everyone else, he will believe again because he will see what he expects, what he wants to see," Sherlock touched her cheek tenderly. "He cares about you. Love makes people blind."

"Indeed." Molly stepped back from him and he let her go. She studied Sherlock as he stood there, silhouetted in dark by the faint light from the fountain. She slumped her shoulders and walked hesitantly towards where John was standing, but Sherlock turned away before she got there. He knew John would embrace her and he couldn't bear to watch.

She rested her head on John's shoulder during the short cab ride to Bart's, wiping tears from her cheeks periodically as John murmured reassurances to her. John glanced over at Sherlock several times as if to tell him to start acting more sympathetic towards Molly. The third time, Sherlock put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer to him. "Molly, come here. You don't want anyone telling John's fiancé he was cuddling with another woman." He let his cheek rest on the top of her head and closed his eyes, enjoying the moment, much to John's surprise. "Shut up, John."

"I didn't say anything."

"I heard you thinking it," Sherlock said, not bothering to open his eyes.

John smiled at the pair, full of hope for both of them in spite of the horror of the day.

A few minutes later, Sherlock directed the cab to the back entrance of Bart's and nudged Molly gently. "Molly," he said to her, in the way that anyone else would speak to a sleeping child, "we are here. It's time to get out. Now that the adrenaline has worn off, I'm sure you are in quite a bit of pain. John will get you something."

Molly stumbled on purpose getting out of the cab, and Sherlock was there to catch her. "John, pay the man," Sherlock said, making a show of picking her up and carrying her into the building and down the stairs to the morgue. She snuggled her head into the side of his neck, feeling completely surrounded by his warm scent, both from his skin and his coat rubbing against her. She was so tired and she wanted nothing more than to surrender to sleep in his arms.

Sherlock was thankful the morgue was empty. The pathologist on duty was asleep in the call room the next floor up, as usual. Molly was the only one who waited up for him, he thought with an inward smile. He bypassed her desk chair and walked straight back to the locker room, only setting her down in front of the shower, which he turned to hot. "John will have gone to the clinic to get supplies."

Molly closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the cool tile while they waited for the water to warm. She didn't want to see his eyes at that moment. She knew they would be inquisitive, irritated, or even worse, indifferent, none of which she could bear. She tried desperately to focus, but he was too close to her in the tiny room, and the fear and exhaustion of the last six months threatened to overwhelm her. Turning around, she pressed her forehead against the wall and reached inside the shower to turn it back to cold, but Sherlock's hand pressed down over hers before she could move the handle.

She stopped breathing at his touch. "What are you doing?"

She refused to look up at him. "I can't focus with you this close to me, Sherlock. It's too much to process all at once. I haven't see you in six months, not even a single word from you until today, and now you're acting like… this." She couldn't see the confused look on his face. "I didn't plan on ever seeing you again."

He rested his palms on her shoulders while his thumbs traced little circles across his coat. "I told you I would come back if I could clear my name and kill Moriarty. You did the hardest part."

"Sherlock…" her voice trailed off. "I thought there was a good chance that I would be dead before you came back, if you came back at all, or at least if I did manage to kill Moriarty I would be gone before you found out."

"Why?" Sherlock whispered, stepping closer to her. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her, to make this better for her. He didn't want her to suffer for him, or because of him. "Why? I thought…"

"Don't ask questions you already know the answers to. Isn't that what you told me?" She dropped her arm back down to her side as the steam rolled up around both of them.

"For once," he turned her around, "Molly Hooper," Sherlock said as he lifted her chin upwards, "I am completely clueless." He brushed his lips against hers and her knees buckled, but he caught her and pressed her up against him. Sherlock waited until she finally returned the kiss for several seconds before he pulled back and reached for the buttons on the coat.

"Please stop, Sherlock. Please." He held his hands still, but didn't back away from her. "I can't think right now." She finally looked at him. "I can't do all of this as fast as you can and I can't read you right now."

Sherlock looked slightly hurt. "I thought I was being quite transparent."

Molly smiled sadly and shook her head. "I don't know if you are thanking me, bribing me in advance for the next favor, or trying to alleviate your guilt because you feel responsible for my decisions."

"I…"

"And I don't think you know either."

"What if it were none of those things?"

"Then you have biological urges that were set off by watching what he did to me, or even worse, what I did to him. And before you say anything else, I really don't want to know. Maybe you're marking your territory for John's benefit. I don't know, okay?" She turned from him and adjusted the temperature of the water.

He dropped his arms to his sides. "Do you really have such a low opinion of me?" If she weren't so tired, she would have caught the hint of pain in his tone.

"Quite the contrary, I have an impossibly high opinion of you," she said with a sigh, looking at the blood drying between her toes. He reached out to touch her cheek, but she pulled back. "How can you stand to even touch me? After what he did to me?"

"Molly..."

Sherlock reached for her again, but John knocked firmly on the door. "Sherlock? Molly? I'm back. Everything alright in there?"

When Sherlock turned towards the sound, Molly dropped the coat to the floor and stepped into the freezing cold water, shutting the shower door firmly behind her.


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Ten minutes later, Molly cracked open the door, hopeful that Sherlock was still outside talking to John, but he was sitting on the floor, his head back against the tile, his eyes closed. He looked like he was asleep. The two towels that were previously within her reach were sitting on Sherlock's lap, covered by his hands.

He barely moved when he spoke. "Towel?"

"Yes, but first I need shampoo from my locker and a change of clothes," Molly said matter-of -factly. The freezing cold water helped.

"John!" Sherlock yelled, not bothering to move or even open his eyes.

John threw the door open, worried something had happened to Molly, then he took in the scene before him. "Sherlock, just give her a towel, for God's sake"

"Molly requires shampoo, conditioner, a hairbrush, and the spare set of clothes from her locker, the third one from the left. The combination is 21-35-3."

"Yeah, alright." John headed out, shaking his head.

Molly closed the door and waited, letting the water pour into the deep wound on her arm. It would save her the trouble of irrigating before suturing. Arterial blood continued to drip from the wound and she watched it splatter into the water near with the drain. She heard John and Sherlock talking softly outside, but she couldn't make out the words, then she realized it didn't matter anyway. Sherlock was back, Moriarty was dead, and her work here was done.

Lestrade would no doubt be arriving in a few hours to collect her, with his apologetic eyes and gentle touch. She'd have to admit to helping Sherlock fake his death because there was no other explanation. He knew she was not incompetent. She could claim self-defense for killing Moriarty and his lackey, but she would have to explain the rape, and face Greg's disappointment that she didn't trust him enough to tell him about it three years ago. John would be disappointed as well, because she lied to him back then as well as for the last six months. He'd question their time together and feel betrayed and hurt on so many different levels. Sherlock was sitting not eight feet away, rooting around in his mind palace, reinforcing his iron control. At least he wouldn't care one way or another, and she took a strange comfort in that predictability. Moriarty was one more puzzle he could claim victory over and he would move on to the next case without hesitation or regret. She envied him for that.

"Molly?" John's hand rested on her shoulder, those kind eyes full of concern for her. He'd set her shampoo and conditioner on the floor next to her. How had she ended up sitting on the floor? She'd only been watching the drops of blood disappear down the drain. She didn't even hear him open the door. He turned the water to warm but it burned her skin. She needed the cold. It numbed the pain. She turned it back again. "Come on, Molly. You're freezing, and the shock has finally set in. Let's get you out of there." He offered her his hand and she realized she was naked. "It's nothing I haven't seen before, Molly. Come on. Sherlock was going to come in here to get you, so I had to threaten to tell Mycroft that he showered with a naked woman to get him to back off."

The mention of Mycroft's name snapped her back to reality. She avoided John's hand and stood on her own, holding onto the wall for support. She noticed how careful he was to not look anywhere other than her face. She shook her head 'no'. "I'm happy for you and Mary, John. You'll be a good husband."

He smiled that boyish grin and looked quite pleased with himself. "Thank you. I'm sure, someday, you'll find…"

The anger at what he was going to say, the utter dishonesty of it, snapped her control back in place. It felt glorious to lock the pain away behind the anger. "Get out," she said, letting him see her cold eyes. He backed away and shut the door gently. She reached for the shampoo and lathered her hair twice in rapid succession, then pulled the conditioner through her hair with her fingers, not caring about the tangles.

John had left her bag outside, complete with her hairbrush and clothes. Sherlock was gone with his coat, having left the towels on top of her bag, and she was grateful for the privacy. She didn't want to face him at all, but certainly not without adequate clothing. She was still shivering as she pulled on her yoga pants, but elected for a scrub top since she had no other short-sleeved shirts and she needed to be able to get to her to suture it, but for now, she packed the wound with some gauze John had left. After tightly applying the martial arts hand wraps, knowing they would stabilize her hands well enough for her to work, Molly headed for the lab.

John had arranged an entire table with sterile medical supplies but the lab was thankfully empty otherwise. She could hear John and Sherlock arguing in hushed tones by the refrigerated drawers. Molly quietly gathered the medications, thankful that John was thorough enough to bring antiretrovirals and antibiotics. God knew she'd had enough of Moriarty's blood in her wounds to contract a blood-borne infection. She took four packages of suture, the suture kit, and three boxes of gauze pads, tucking them into her bag as quietly as she could before heading for the door. There was no time to look back.

"I told you she'd run, John." Sherlock's voice carried from the far side of the lab, obviously not caring that she heard.

"And I told you that she might just need some space to clear her head," John said as Molly paused at the door, not daring to look back at them.

It was John who approached her. "No one will blame you if you leave. But I ask that you let me examine you, run some blood tests, and close the laceration on your arm. Sherlock is convinced you were going to try to fix that yourself."

"She's done it before. Six times," Sherlock said.

"Eight," Molly corrected.

John looked at her, incredulous. "Eight? Why didn't you come to me, Molly? I do have some relevant skills, you know. I would have helped you."

Molly didn't turn around. She couldn't bear to see their faces. "You would have asked too many questions that I didn't want to answer, and I didn't want to cause you any more worry."

"It didn't work. I worried about you constantly," John said.

"You would have done more to stop me if you knew everything," Molly said, letting the determination she'd embraced for six months steady her. She was grateful she was still so cold from the shower.

Even Sherlock said nothing for a solid minute. John's voice quieted and he walked over to the table of supplies. "You're right. I thought you were just having trouble dealing with Sherlock's 'death', or I guess, his absence, as the case may be, and that you would eventually get over it. But that was never your plan, getting over him. Was it." He shot Sherlock a disappointed look, which Sherlock ignored.

"Molly, John will feel better about this if you let him be a doctor. The emotional distance of the physician/patient relationship will help decrease his personal discomfort with your situation, and he will be reassured that he was able to make a positive contribution to your recovery," said Sherlock.

"Sherlock, we've talked about this before," John warned, but Molly just sat down on the morgue's table, the same one where she worked on Sherlock after his fall, and waited. John pulled on gloves and examined the wound with gentle fingers.

"There's a small arterial bleed, easy enough to tie off, but this is down to the bone. The severed muscle fibers have retracted. You're lucky it wasn't near any of the major nerves or arteries, but you've still lost a fair amount of blood." He continued to probe the wound expertly. "Let me know if I'm hurting you." Molly said nothing, so he continued. "You have two partially lacerated tendons. Molly, this needs to go to surgery." He ran his fingers across some of the other scars on her forearms.

"Just sew it up. You're a trauma surgeon. I'm certain this is all within your skill set."

"Pain control will be easier with general anesthesia and you know it."

"I'll be fine, just do it here."

Until then, Sherlock had been quietly leaning against the doorway, watching them. "Now just where did you learn that little trick, Molly? I'm impressed."

John looked back and forth between them as they stared each other down, before finally giving up and wiping her entire arm down with betadine. Molly looked away first and focused her gaze on the cabinet straight in front of her, but John knew her mind was elsewhere. He stood in front of her with a large syringe of lidocaine to numb the wound and tried to get her attention. "Molly? Why don't you lie down on your side so I can get to the wound, and…this is going to hurt quite a bit."

"Let him do it," Sherlock said as he came to stand beside her, warning her with his eyes. "Let him numb it first."

There was no point in arguing. It was too hard to say no to Sherlock, and she needed some time to plan her next move. She had given only a small amount of thought to what would happen if she made it out alive, and she always expected that she'd have hours to days before Sherlock re-emerged.

"Lift your head," said Sherlock, his tone commanding but not harsh. As she complied, he slid his folded-up coat underneath her head before he pulled up a chair to sit in front of her. "Look at me," he said to her as John laid the sterile drapes under and around her arm. "Look at me," he said again.

Molly was irritated at his presumption, ordering her around. Granted, that is what he had always done, but she finally had the tools to resist… maybe.

John began injecting lidocaine, which burned like fire, but Molly kept her eyes closed, forcing her mind away from the physical discomfort. She pulled her memories of the cold around her like a blanket, especially the bone-deep cold of winter, when she would sit for hours on the roof in the middle of the night, flirting with the border of consciousness.

"Molly," Sherlock said more gently, caressing the side of her face, making her flinch. His fingers were too warm against her skin.

"Sherlock, give it a rest and stop messing with her mind." John warned. "I don't want her punching you while I'm working on her arm."

Sherlock looked offended, but he got up and shuffled off to Molly's office, slamming the door behind him. Once the local anesthetic took effect, John set about repairing her tendons and closing the muscle layer.

"He cares about you, you know," said John.

"No, he doesn't. He's afraid. He's afraid I will leave and he won't be able to find a new pathologist here who is so compliant and accommodating to his every whim. He always exploits my affection for him so he can win his mental game. Nothing is more important to him than solving the puzzles his cases bring."

"No, that's not it."

"Don't worry, John. I made my peace with it. Sherlock uses us because that is who he is. I finally understand him now."

"Molly, he cares about you. He might not admit it, well, because he's Sherlock, but he does. You should have seen him when you went missing. He was frantic."

"I doubt that."

"I've never seen him like that and I've been with him on a lot of cases." John continued suturing. "When he thought Moriarty was going to… to…"

"Rape me," Molly said, emotionless.

"Yeah," John continued. "He was terrified. Whenever he figures out a case and rescues someone, he doesn't console the victims or act concerned about their wellbeing after the fact. Not even me, when Moriarty strapped a bomb to my chest and threatened to blow me to hell. Sherlock was cool and collected, perfectly in control of himself. And I've never seen him be concerned about anyone's comfort before," John said, indicating the coat under Molly's head. "He touches you. He doesn't like to touch people."

"It will pass once he thinks I'm not leaving."

John lowered his voice as he reached for the scissors. "But you are leaving, aren't you." It was more of a statement than a question.

"Yes."

"Why?" John opened another package of suture and resumed his work.

"You know why."

John nodded as their eyes met briefly. "But he doesn't. He won't understand."

"He never will."

"I suppose not," said John, glancing towards Molly's office, where Sherlock typed furiously on her computer.


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

John worked in silence for another twenty minutes. Molly could feel tears threatening, not from pain, just from the relief that her journey was nearly done. She'd never thought much about what she would do afterwards because it hadn't mattered. It's not like she could wander off and marry some average man, have his children, and hold down a "regular" job. Not anymore. Maybe she'd take Mycroft up on his offer. MI-6 would get her out of the country and likely dead before she ceased to be useful to them. It wasn't a bad plan. Brendan told her knew a few people at the NSA and Homeland Security who would offer her employment on the spot with his recommendation. Maybe that was the better plan. Mycroft would tell Sherlock where she was if the price was right.

Molly inspected the wound when John was finished. "Thank you, John. I'm sure it will heal up quite nicely now. You should really get back into the OR. You're an excellent physician." She sat up as he put the dressing on.

"Thank you, but you are trying to use flattery to distract me. I wonder where you learned that trick," John said, trying to sound teasing, but she knew he was serious. "Are you going to let me look at your hands?"

"They're okay, really."

"They are significantly swollen and bruised, and your left hand had an obvious deformity when Greg and I first…got to you."

She sighed. "Seems you learned a few tricks as well."

"Yes, but those I learned taking care of battlefield injuries. Are you going to let me look?"

Molly unwrapped her hands and John hid his concern behind the physician mask. "I dislocated my first carpometacarpal joints to get free."

"How the hell did you do that? That joint is very stable." He asked, running his strong but gentle fingers across the rest of the joints in her hands and wrists.

"Yes it is."

"You've done that before, haven't you?" He could feel how loose those joints were.

"Three other times on the right, twice on the left, to make sure the ligaments were sufficiently lax."

"That's not something you could have done on your own the first time or two." When she said nothing, John closed his eyes and let his head drop forward, trying to push away the idea of someone hurting her like that. He settled for just holding her small hands. "Jesus, Molly. I wish you told me. I wish you hadn't done this to yourself. We could have figured something else out."

"I'm an adult, John. You are not responsible for me, so stop feeling guilty. I made my choices and I will live with the consequences. I went into this with my eyes open." She glanced towards her office, towards Sherlock, for just a moment before she took a deep breath and rewrapped her hands.

"You killed two men today. Granted, it was self-defense, but that kind of thing takes a toll on you when you've never…"

"I have absolutely no problem with killing them, and if it reassures you, they weren't the first. I killed Sebastian Moran, Moriarty's right hand man, and two others that worked for him. They didn't bother me either. They deserved to die."

John nodded, but the emptiness in her eyes made him shiver. He put an IV into her good arm, withdrawing a few tubes of blood and administering fluids and antibiotics. "Do you want something to help with the pain?"

"I'm okay." Now that she was calmer, and around someone she trusted, the pain was creeping back along with a deep weariness.

John started to clean up. "Are you really, though, okay?" His voice cracked a little.

"John. Look at me." He did, the concern evident on his face. "I was prepared for him, for Moriarty. I trained for it. When I cried and whimpered for him, it wasn't real, okay? It was part of the act. I needed him to think I was beaten, that I was no threat to him, that I'd surrendered, so he'd unchain my ankles. Stop feeling sorry for me." She tried to stand up, since storming off seemed so appropriate, but the dizziness and nausea had other ideas. John eased her back down to the table.

"Did you tell him?" John gestured towards where Sherlock was working.

"I'm sure he knows. Nothing gets past him." She snuggled her cheek into Sherlock's coat, and he saw her inhale deeply and close her eyes. He watched her until her breathing became slow and even.

"Oh, I think this did."


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

John walked into Molly's office and sat down in the chair. Sherlock ignored him.

"We need to talk, Sherlock."

"Go ahead." He kept working.

"I need one hundred percent of your attention, so stop what you are doing there."

"I'm sure thirty percent will be sufficient for anything you have to say," Sherlock said, continuing his work.

John pulled the power cord from the outlet. Rather than yell or insult John, Sherlock leaned back and closed his eyes. "How is she, John?" He was afraid of the answer.

"Physically? She'll survive. Her arm will heal in a few weeks. She will have permanent damage to her hands, as she's dislocated the same joints on multiple occasions in preparation for Moriarty to chain her up and rape her." The first traces of anger became evident in his voice. "Did I mention she prepared for that too? I don't even want to think about how." Sherlock remained silent as his mind worked from one horrible scenario to the next. "She has multiple other defensive knife scars on her arms, so someone has been slicing her up while teaching her to fight." John rubbed his temples. "Do you know what they told us in the army about hand-to-hand combat? You can't fight effectively until you release your fear of being hurt or dying. Molly picked that little tidbit up and took it to heart." Sherlock said nothing. "Did you know that these weren't the first two people she killed?"

Sherlock opened his eyes. "Who did she kill?" He knew from personal experience what crossing that line could do to a person.

"Moriarty's lieutenant and two of his other cronies, but that's not the point."

Sherlock laughed. "She killed Sebastian Moran? Molly? That's my girl. I hunted him for two months before he strangely disappeared." He played through the possibilities in his mind, but most of them ended up with Moran dying with a thoroughly surprised look on his face.

"Sherlock! Did you hear anything else that I said?" John was angry.

He frowned. "Yes."

John sat forward, resting his hands on his knees. "I want you to ask yourself why she did all of this. Why didn't she just go back to her job here, find a nice, normal man, and settle down and have a family?"

"I don't know… I asked her to move on with her life, not to wait for me." Sherlock remembered that day, and how it felt to hold her, how much he'd wanted to tell her the truth. It was the day he stopped being able to bury his feelings for her. The memory of her in his arms made his chest hurt.

"If you can't even admit it to yourself, you don't deserve her."

"Admit what?"

"Fuck you, Sherlock!" John was angry, but Sherlock had no idea why. "Molly was ready to die for you today, and I think she wishes she had! She would have let Moriarty rape her- for you! So you could come back to your life and be free. She wanted you to be happy, but for the love of God, I don't know why. You abused her, put her down, then strung her along with false complements, and she only wanted the chance to love you and be loved back. Do you have any idea what that does to a person?"

"I do."

John stopped his tirade and just stared at his friend. "I'm sorry, what?"

"I know what that is like, intimately." Sherlock studied the wall rather than look at his friend.

The reality of Sherlock's childhood settled heavily over John's mind. "Then why? Why would you do that to another human being?"

"Because I'm a coward, John. I don't know how to love someone, or let them love me. I wanted to be… closer to her, but every time I tried, I didn't know how to handle it and so I reestablished the distance."

"Well, congratulations, now she's a sociopath, just like you. You two are perfect for each other, but she is going to leave your sorry ass anyway. She is going to leave you and you will never see her again."

"I know." Sherlock slammed his fists onto the desk. "I just don't know why!"

"Because she's tired of being so close to someone she loves and knows she will never have! How can you be so stupid?"

Sherlock got up and shoved the chair towards the desk. He paced quickly for a moment, then stopped and closed his eyes, clenching his fists at his sides. "I thought about her every day while I was gone, John. I wondered how she was, what she was doing, if she was happy. I hoped she'd move on. How could she ever be happy with me?" His breathing was ragged and shallow. He hated himself.

John got up, went over to Sherlock, and put a hand on his back. "Sherlock, listen to me. You either go in there right now and tell her that you love her, that you would do anything for her, and that you want to be a better man for her, or you'll lose her forever."

"I kissed her… before her shower. I tried to show her."

"You kissed her? Just after she was sexually assaulted by the same man that raped her three years ago, and while she was covered in that man's blood after she killed him and mutilated his corpse? Do you see the problem here?"

He really didn't.

"Sherlock, you used her too many times and she thinks you are just trying to manipulate her into staying here so you can use her again to work on your cases." He let the thought percolate in Sherlock's mind for a few seconds. "Do you know what the worst part is? She forgives you. She forgives you unreservedly."

"Why?"

"Because that's what you do when you love someone," John said softly.

Tears rolled down Sherlock's face as he slid to the floor and buried his head in his hands. "I don't know how to do this, John. It's better if she does leave. She can start over somewhere else, with someone else."

John sat next to his friend. "She doesn't want someone else. She wants you." He let the thought percolate in Sherlock's mind for a moment. "So you need to go in there, literally get on your knees, beg her to give you another chance, and hope to God that she grants it. If she does, then you need to worship her like a goddess for the rest of your life."

Sherlock squared his shoulders and looked pleased with the plan. "Good," he said, jumping up and heading for the door. He turned around at the last minute and asked John, "You don't think she'll want me to sacrifice goats to her, do you?" He didn't wait for an answer.

John smiled, pleased that Sherlock might be on the precipice of something so good for him, and good for Molly. Maybe the light at the end of this tunnel wasn't an oncoming train.

Sherlock burst into the room, ready to throw himself onto her mercy. He was rather looking forward to worshipping every inch of her, possibly for days at a time.

But when he got there, he found only his neatly folded coat.


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter 28

The Next Day

"Hello little brother," Mycroft's unhurried voice grated on Sherlock's frayed nerves. "Back amongst the living?"

"Where is she, Mycroft?" Sherlock snapped.

"Who?"

"Molly!"

"Dr. Hooper? I have no idea."

"Don't play dumb with me, _brother_. She couldn't have disappeared completely like this without help."

"I have not spoken to Dr. Hooper about any disappearance, but John mentioned that she left you voluntarily, and that you have some sort of emotional attachment to her. You know better than that." He wasn't surprised that John had already talked to Mycroft.

"Where is she?" He demanded, but then his voice softened. "Please, Mycroft."

"Again, I do not know where she is, but even if I did, I would not tell you. Caring is not an advantage, little brother." He hung up and Sherlock threw the phone against the wall, shattering it.

Molly hadn't passed through any of the ports or airports, she did not rent a car, and she had no friends that he could discern. Her coworkers were useless. She hadn't used her credit cards, and she'd emptied her bank accounts three months prior. He stormed out to talk to the homeless network again.

Two Weeks Later

Sherlock had turned over every stone in Britain. Molly was gone. John had removed all of the knives and firearms from the flat, and made him promise not to jump off a building. Sherlock found that London's homeless were very fond of Molly. She'd been kind, generous, and had spent far too much time learning to pick locks, forge documents, and navigate the underworld for Sherlock's taste. They told him they saw her near the cemetery almost every day, which he found curious, since Molly knew he had survived the fall. Why would she visit there? He even tried leaving her a message on his headstone with a single red rose, but it went untouched for a week.

John said he didn't believe she was suicidal, but that was small comfort when he couldn't see her or touch her to reassure himself she was safe.

Sherlock wandered the streets near the cemetery for hours until he finally found himself standing outside the gates of Hounslow Barracks. He dialed John's mobile.

"What's wrong, Sherlock?"

"Shooting, John. Did you take her somewhere to teach her?" His words were rapid and precise. "She knew what she was doing. She double-tapped Moriarty's man in the Tower. That's not a civilian technique."

"I took her to Hounslow once, but I didn't teach her the double tap. We just went through the basics, and only once."

"Did you introduce her to anyone? At Hounslow or anyone else from the military at any point?"

"Just an old friend of mine. He runs the range at the base, and he owed me a favor for saving his life in Afghanistan."

"Special forces?"

"US Navy Seal."

"I need a name John. Someone taught her. Hounslow's near the cemetery. And why is a United States Navy Seal running a gun range on a military base that provides ceremonial guards for the Queen's public functions?"

"Actually, I think he's probably CIA, or... Jesus, Sherlock. It has to be him. But why would he do that to her?"

"Name, John. I need his name."

"Brendan Callahan. Lieutenant." Sherlock hung up and ran to the guard post.

Two weeks later

Mycroft bailed Sherlock out of jail for the second time for trespassing on a military base and fixed the charges, but no one from the Queen down knew who Lieutenant Callahan was or even if he was still on base. Sherlock had called in every favor he could think of, but he was no closer to finding her. The number he'd given John had been disconnected.

John checked his email for the third time that day, while Sherlock paced, stopping every few minutes near where John worked. "Spit it out, Sherlock."

"Spit out what?"

"Whatever question has been circling in your mind for the last twenty minutes."

Sherlock stopped again, but laid on the sofa. "Do you think she ran off with your friend?"

"You mean, as in romantically?"

"Yes."

"No, I don't think so. He may have helped her leave, but that man is single-mindedly devoted to his wife. His dead wife."

_Interesting. _"How did she die?"

"I don't know, he wouldn't talk about it, but I had him in hospital in Afghanistan for two weeks, and he always had that wedding ring in the palm of his left hand. He talked to it, to her, sometimes, when he thought no one was nearby."

"How big was the ring?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Was it his wife's ring, or his ring? Was it sized to fit a woman's finger, or a man's?"

"I'm not a bloody jeweler, but it was probably his wife's. It was hard to tell, since it was bent. He'd seen a lot of action."

Sherlock stood and covered the distance between him and John in two strides, grabbing the laptop away from him. "Why didn't you tell me before, John? I can find him now, and he will know where she is."

John didn't bother to argue with Sherlock, he was in one of his moods and he wouldn't be listening anyway.

Three Days Later

Sherlock bounded down the stairs. "Mrs. Hudson? Mrs. Hudson!"

"Oh dear, is something the matter?" She came out of her rooms to see Sherlock carrying a small travel bag over his shoulder. "Are you going somewhere, Sherlock?"

"Obviously. Please be a dear and make something nice for dinner. John's fiancé is coming over to meet me, and he's a dreadful cook."

"But you won't be here."

"Of course not."

"I'm not your housekeeper, Sherlock!" Mrs. Hudson called out to him as he walked out the front door.

"I know, but thank you," he called back to her.

Mrs. Hudson stood alone at the bottom of the stairs. "Who are you and what have you done with the real Sherlock Holmes?" she said, before wandering off to the kitchen to whip up a romantic meal.

As he stepped out the door to wait for a taxi, Sherlock found himself in an unusually good mood. He had a plan, a ticket to Washington D.C., a private investigator with a lead on the parents of the late Mrs. Callahan, and a contact in the CIA that owed him a favor. Well, the man didn't so much owe him a favor as much as he agreed to give Sherlock information in exchange for his assistance with a delicate matter of espionage. It was tidy and convenient, just the way he liked it.

A man in dark-colored jeans, a plain grey tee shirt, and Washington National's baseball cap stepped up to Sherlock's right. The man dropped his cigarette butt to the pavement and ground it out with a cowboy boot. Sherlock barely glanced at him. Tourists were irritating.

"So you're the famous Sherlock Holmes," the man said, not actually looking at him, his soft Texas drawl grating on Sherlock's nerves. He found foreign fans wanting autographs or photos exceptionally irritating.

"I'm in a hurry," Sherlock said, turning to walk up the street to where cabs were more plentiful. The man kept pace easily.

"You're gonna want to hear what I have to say, _mate_." Sherlock stopped and turned toward him, flicking his eyes over the man from head to toe. Muscular, but not from steroids. Very little body fat. Mid to late thirties. Right handed. Calluses on the distal aspect of his knuckles of both hands, likely a boxer, though he didn't have the upper body carriage of a martial artist, possibly an underworld enforcer. Clothes were not expensive or exceptional in any way, quite average, available from a variety of low-level retailers, though while the shirt was new, the jeans were well-worn, and the boots were prized possessions, at least ten years old. Cheap Timex watch. Probably not a man of significant financial means. No jewelry, but a mild indentation and small callous on the base of the left fourth finger. Linear scar on the back of the right hand, at least five years old.

The man interrupted him. "Do you have it yet?" He offered Sherlock a cigarette. "It's your brand."

Sherlock was tempted. He'd been sneaking more cigarettes to help his concentration while looking for Molly, but he waved the man off.

"No? Alright. Let's go for a little stroll," the man said, walking ahead of Sherlock like he expected him to follow.

There was something… not right about him, Sherlock thought. The man glanced over his shoulder, smiled slightly, straightened his back, pulled his shoulders up, tucked his chin, and his gait morphed from meandering tourist to one of purposeful, military authority within one step.

Sherlock caught up to him quickly. "So what do I call you," Sherlock asked, "since Brendan Callahan is not your real name?"

"Callahan is fine for now, as I'd rather you didn't mention my real name, which you already know, in public. I'll buy you a cup of coffee," he said casually. Sherlock noted how he kept an eye on his surroundings at all times without making it obvious.

"I don't drink coffee."

Brendan chuckled. "Of course you do, black, two sugars. I know all about you."

"You didn't know that I was alive during those six months. She kept that from you." They spoke quietly as they walked.

"You are as good as she said." It was an acknowledgement, not praise.

"She lied to you because you would agree to her request more readily if you shared the common bond of a deceased loved one with a violent end. Your wife was killed on September 11, 2001. The Pentagon. So you volunteered for Seal training, then the CIA recruited you several years later due to your… moral flexibility when it came to the terrorists."

He nodded. "Motivation is everything in my line of work."

"And you thought Molly was sufficiently motivated? Was that the only reason you brought her into a training program completely unsuited to her skills or temperament?"

"As I said." He turned into a corner shop and sat down at a small table. The place was empty except for an elderly woman who took their order before disappearing into the back. Sherlock wondered how long she'd been on the US government's payroll.

They regarded each other for several minutes, but Sherlock broke the silence first. "Why come to me now? You've known for weeks that I was looking for you."

Brendan sat back in his chair and crossed his cowboy boots under the table. "Did you ever stop to think that maybe Miss Hooper doesn't want to be found?"

"You know where she is," Sherlock said.

"Of course I do. I helped set her up in her new life."

"Why? Why train her, help her, then go through considerable trouble and expense to change her identity. It had to be more than sympathy or a feeling that you two were somehow kindred spirits in a world of unfairness. You don't have that kind of authority."

Brendan smiled at the thought, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Moriarty was as much a threat to the US as he was to Britain. He was expanding his network. Molly presented us with his weakness and a way to exploit it."

"It's more than that. You could have easily convinced her to share all of that information with you then denied her further involvement outside of a consulting rule. She was entirely unsuited to the job."

Brendan chuckled as their coffee arrived, smiling good-naturedly at the woman then waited for her to disappear into the back room again. "When she contacted me, I tried to talk her out of it. I actually refused outright. But apparently, Molly has some powerful friends in your intelligence community, because the next day, my orders came down to train her."

_Mycroft, _Sherlock thought. _And I gave her the blackmail information she used to secure his help. Bastard. _

"Of course, I tried to prove to her that she wouldn't last twenty minutes and rid myself of the extra workload, but she surprised me." Sherlock's shock must have showed on his face, because Brendan smiled. "Do you know what we do to a recruit first? What has to happen before we can even begin to build them into a weapon?"

There was threat in Sherlock's eyes. "You break them."

Brendan nodded. "A clean slate is the only way to make them into warriors."

Sherlock was seething. He'd seen Molly hurt enough. "What. Did. You. Do. To. Her." Sherlock leaned across the table, the threat clear, but Brendan's body language was relaxed preparedness. He wasn't trying to escalate this.

"Me? She was already there, completely broken." Brendan took a sip of his coffee and added more cream. "And she has you to thank for that, mate." Sherlock sat back in his chair, confused. "You made my job easy."

The words crashed down on him until he felt like he was drowning. His chest hurt, and his mouth went dry.

"So I'll ask you again," Brendan said, "did you ever stop to think that she might not want you to find her?"

Sherlock pushed down the panic that threatened to overwhelm him. He honestly never doubted that Molly would come home with him once he told her he loved her. It's what she'd wanted for years. Kind, sweet, loving Molly would teach him how to love her, how to make her happy. But now, he doubted. "Circumstances have changed," he finally said.

"Well, you'd better start explaining those circumstances, genius, if we're going to continue our conversation."


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Love has its reasons that Reason knows not. – Blaise Pascal

Five days later

Molly moved the .45 into the holster at the back of her jeans and picked up the axe. She swung it downwards in an arc, splitting the log cleanly in two, then each part in half again. For the better part of an hour, she split logs and piled them neatly into the back of her pickup. The wind was turning cooler as the sun crept closer to the horizon, and she welcomed the change. The leaves turned, the days shortened, and the cold whispered to her through the trees like a promise. She'd chosen Montana for its winters. And its emptiness.

She found she didn't mind teaching like she thought she would. The local high school needed a math and science teacher and they were very pleased to have found her. She felt appreciated by the administration, parents, and even most students. She challenged them, showing them how to use knowledge of biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics to solve real-world problems, catch paper criminals, and impress their friends. It was… adequate. She smiled, conformed, pretended, and they never suspected she was not a schoolteacher from Manchester who had read too many paperback westerns and longed for life on the range after a messy divorce from an abusive husband. They never questioned her lies.

Molly returned to her cabin and added the wood to the growing pile. It provided her with heat when she needed it, hot water, and electricity. For the cost of hard work, she lived off the grid, with a minimum of computerized records for the curious to find. She could be alone with the silence. Or just alone.

She poured herself a glass of wine and took a lukewarm shower. Her shoulder-length hair dried more quickly than when it was longer, and she found she rather liked being a redhead. She had finally adjusted to being able to change her appearance without worrying what Sherlock would say. She had even turned down a few dates. Since coming to the States she had largely kept to her protein-heavy diet and workout, as it made her better than Weak Molly, but she'd parted with everything else that had previously defined her. In order to begin a new life, the other had to be sacrificed, she thought as she applied light makeup, pulled on her skinny jeans and a dark green velvet wrap around shirt. She left her hair loose.

Sipping her wine, she turned on the coffee pot and set out two mugs before heading outside to watch the last rays of sunset.

After an hour alone in the quiet of full dark, Molly took three deep breaths and pulled the cold around her as a shield, feeling her icy focus snap back into place. She had looked deep into Moriarty's eyes as she killed him. She could do this. She stood and turned to face the darkness where she knew he was waiting. Watching. "Why are you here, Sherlock?"

He stepped into the dim light emanating from her kitchen window. He looked thinner, Molly thought, but as usual, his expression gave nothing away and it was too dark for her to read his eyes. "How are you, Molly?"

She refused to allow him to manipulate her anymore. "I can't imagine that you came here to inquire after my health. You already know the answer to that question. Now tell me why you are here."

Molly could almost feel him censoring himself as he paused before answering. "I needed to see you."

"Obviously," Molly replied without a hint of emotion. Sherlock knew her weaknesses, her oldest and deepest ones, and she was exceedingly careful not to reveal any more to him than necessary. He could not hurt her unless she allowed it, she reminded herself, and she had no intention of permitting him to get that close, physically or mentally. It was time to wait him out.

He stepped closer to her, but not into her personal space. Her eyes should have told him not to cross that barrier. She moved her feet to shoulder width apart, the left one slightly in front of the right, and balanced her weight between them. It was the first step in assuming a fighting stance. She doubted she would need to physically fight him, but he wouldn't miss the body language. "I needed to make sure you were okay."

"I seriously doubt that, Sherlock. Though I think we have already settled the debt between us, haven't we? You have your old life back, fully redeemed, just as you wanted, and I have a brand new life far from you. I would have thought you'd be pleased to be free of the annoyance. Or have you come because my replacement at Bart's won't give you what you want, whenever you want it?"

"You're angry," Sherlock said solemnly, his piercing gaze never wavering from hers. "I didn't expect anger," he said, clearly puzzled.

"Of course I'm angry! You left for six months without so much as a whisper to me that you were okay during all that time. I worried about you every day, you stupid git, but I didn't look for you because I knew you didn't want to be found. I'm gone for barely two months, a disappearance that I've clearly planned, and you can't afford me the same courtesy?" Molly felt the sadness and the pain try to creep in past her anger, but she pushed those emotions down deep and forced her body to remain still, like ice in winter.

He stepped to within arm's reach of her, where she could see his face more clearly, but she didn't back down from him like she would have a year ago. She thought she saw an echo of her own pain in his eyes, only for a moment, before he closed them silently, clenched his fists, and cocked his head to the side. She'd seen the look before. He was processing some sort of emotion, like when he'd insulted her at Christmas. His hands relaxed and he forced the words out. "I am sorry. I expected a different reaction."

Molly shook her head. "You expected me to smile, and stutter, and fetch you coffee after you've sent a few choice insults my way? Is that it?"

"There is no point in denying my past mistreatment of you. I want to do better," he said, looking over her shoulder awkwardly.

"Then start with telling me why you are here. Your five minutes are nearly up."

"Five minutes?"

"Brendan recommended I give you five minutes, rather than disappearing before you got here. Out of curiosity, what did you say to him, to get him to give up my location?"

"I played on his one weakness." They both knew what it was.

"You always were the clever liar," she said quietly. Sherlock stepped a little closer to her, letting his eyes stray to her lips.

"For once, I wish I wasn't."

"Clever? Or a liar?" She couldn't hide the trace of anger in her voice.

Sherlock started to reach a hand out towards her, but she cleared her throat, bringing his eyes back to hers. He dropped his hand back to his side. "I lied to you, in the lab at Bart's, just before I went to the roof." His expression was vulnerable, but she was too used to his manipulations to allow herself the luxury of believing this one.

"Ah. So you're just here to twist the knife. I should have expected that."

Confusion registered on Sherlock's face. "No, it's not…"

"I'm well aware of the lie, Sherlock. I asked you to lie to me in a very specific manner. I'm certain you remember."

"No, Molly. The lie was allowing you to think it meant nothing to me, that it was all falsified for your benefit."

"So you're saying that you, Sherlock Holmes, felt something? I mean other than contempt, annoyance, or disapproval?" Courage didn't feel as good as she'd imagined it would. This felt like driving nails into her own coffin, but she couldn't stop.

His jaw clenched and his hands curled into fists at his sides again. "Fear."

Her heart softened for him slightly and her posture became more relaxed. "It's not easy to face our own mortality. It's normal to be afraid."

The intensity in his eyes as he met hers was disquieting. "No, no, no!" Sherlock nearly yelled, exasperated. He paced for a few seconds before coming close to her and putting his hands on her shoulders. "I was not afraid of dying, Molly. I was afraid of what I felt for you."

"Which was what, exactly?" She couldn't bear the scrutiny in his eyes. What he said was going to hurt enough without him trying to peer into her soul.

"Love." He whispered the word, as if he were not used to the sound of it. "I'm in love with you. I was afraid of…"

Molly slapped him in the face as hard as she could, then twisted out of his grip, falling back into a fighting stance. "How dare you! You son of a bitch!"

Sherlock rubbed his cheek once in surprise, but made no move to retaliate. He simply dropped his arms to his sides and closed his eyes, forcing himself to relax. "I'm sorry. I see now that your feelings towards me have changed. I will leave. I've told no one else of your location. You will be safe here."

Before he could turn to leave, she punched him in the face hard enough to drop him to his knees. The small portion of his brain that wasn't figuring out how to cope with the emotional pain was actually impressed. "How dare you come here and try to manipulate me that way? After everything I've done for you? Man up, Sherlock." He managed to stand up and face her, but his expression was one of calm acceptance, which only fueled her temper. She hit him again, causing him to stumble backwards. "You could never love me. You've made that so very clear. It took me four years to admit that to myself, but I now that I've finally taken your advice and moved on, you show up because my absence is inconvenient for you." She shouted at him. "You could have just told me you needed my skills for a case, or to help you break the law again, or that you want me to come back because can't get what you want out of the morgue at Bart's without me there to risk my job and my freedom every time you bat your eyelids and smile at me, or say my name in that sexy, low voice of yours." She sank to her knees and covered her face with her hands as silent sobs wracked her body. "God, you know how that makes me weak. You know I'd do anything for you."

Sherlock closed the distance between them and knelt in front of her. "I am not a good person. I never will be. But I do love you, Molly." He wished he had been a better man.

"You don't do love, Sherlock. None of us mere mortals could ever be good enough for you, and you consider it a weakness to care for someone, don't you? You're certainly above all that banality. Worse yet, I think you're right." She flinched when his hand touched her shoulder, but she didn't pull away.

"Molly. In those six months, do you honestly believe that you were the only one capable of change? I missed you every day. I wanted to hold you again. I wanted to tell you where I was, that I was alright, but if I did, it would put you in terrible danger. It hurt too much to think about anything happening to you. I was afraid of losing myself in emotions I couldn't control, but I'm not afraid anymore."

Something in what he said made her harden. She lowered her hands from her face, squared her shoulders, and her eyes met his full on in the dim light. Her voice was cold and empty as she reigned in her anger. "This is the last time I'm going to ask you. Why are you here?"

Sherlock dropped his hand from her shoulder and sat back on his heels. He ran a hand through the hair on the side of his head once. "Because I needed you to know. I had hoped that I wasn't too late, that you could find a way to forgive me. I want to spend the rest of my life with you and only you, Molly. But if I'd known that this would upset you so much, I would never have come." He sighed as his shoulders slumped forward. He looked away from her, up towards the stars. "I planned to tell you that night after John finished with your arm, but you were gone. I hoped you had guessed the truth when I kissed you. I will never be a normal 'boyfriend' or 'partner'," he said the last words as if they were somehow distasteful and inadequate descriptors. Sherlock closed his eyes again and fought to control his crushing disappointment. "But I wanted to be yours," he said quietly. "I wanted us to be happy."

Molly's voice softened, and he could hear the tears hitting the dry leaves underneath her. "People like us don't get to be happy, Sherlock. Not really. You'd tire of me in a few weeks, maybe a month. Or you'd run off on some case and not speak to me for weeks. I don't think I could live like that, Sherlock. I'm not a shiny new toy you take down when you're bored or lonely, then forget about when something more interesting comes along."

"I'm sorry I've given you reason to think so little of me. I hope in time you will forgive me." He stood slowly and unbuttoned his coat, shrugging his arms out as quietly as he could. He wrapped it around her while she looked away. He knew it bothered her to think he saw her as weak. As his fingers brushed against the bare skin of her neck, he could feel how cold she was and he wondered how long she'd been out here waiting for him. "You've always kept my secrets and been there for me when I needed you. I offer the same to you. You know how to find me." He stood and took two steps away before turning his back to her. "Goodbye, Doctor Hooper." He walked away slowly, finding it exceedingly difficult to put one foot in front of the other in any direction that didn't lead to her.

Molly crumpled to the ground, grateful for the cold, unyielding ground. It was the only thing solid she had. This time, the cold wasn't going to be enough. She'd forced the hope for any life with Sherlock to die all those months ago. She mourned it, laid it to rest, and walked away, just like he'd wanted. It didn't matter than she was never going to get over him, that there would always be a Sherlock-sized hole in her heart, but at least she could control the bleeding if she were alone and out of his reach forever. He had no right to show up on her doorstep and reopen that very painful wound. He might have played on Brendan's only weakness, his love for his murdered wife, or more specifically, the absolute belief that love is the only real thing worth fighting and dying for. In the end, it was the reason he had agreed to train her. Mycroft's influence just made it official and kept Brendan from jeopardizing his career.

She let the tears flow freely, hoping the catharsis would help, but by the time they dried up, she wished Moriarty had killed her in the Tower. True, she hoped it was after some arbitrary and imaginary point where Sherlock was rendered permanently safe and exonerated. If only he had stayed away that night as she had asked. If only he'd been out of the country, or occupied somewhere that he would never have seen Moriarty's message, she could have killed Moriarty and left the country before ever seeing him again.

He obviously had worked hard to track her down. If John had any inclination that Brendan had helped her, John would have tried to stop it himself given his vocal opposition to her transformation, but he obviously never made the connection. Mycroft knew, but he'd made it clear to Molly that he was very much behind her plan to slip out of the country and hide from Sherlock forever, as he didn't want his brother emotionally entangled with anyone. But it wasn't Sherlock's skills she underestimated, she realized. It was his motivation. As Brendan frequently reminded her, _motivation is everything._ She thought he'd quickly get bored and refocus his attention on manipulating her replacement instead of trying to lure her back. She never considered a scenario where he possessed any other reasons, even when he helped her mutilate Moriarty's body, or when he kissed her, touched her, and showed her… what was it? Kindness? Sherlock was always three steps ahead of her and she repeatedly failed to recognize that the light at the end of the tunnel wasn't daylight. It was always a train, one she never saw until just before it ran over her.

Even with Sherlock's coat, the heat of her body seeped into the cold ground relentlessly, and she welcomed the pain. She ignored the inconsequential shivering of her body and tried to calm her mind, to focus, resettle into the mindset she'd used to lure Moriarty in and kill him. Moriarty was nearly Sherlock's intellectual equal. Why couldn't she figure out him out? Sherlock pursued her all this way only to leave when she called his bluff. Maybe he had expected her to just fall gratefully into his arms and return to London and beg for her job back so he could return to doing his as he had before. Mike Stamford would never have hired someone that would obstruct Sherlock, though it was likely her replacement would not be quite as willing to break half a dozen laws and at least as many hospital regulations. She had always tried to be useful to Sherlock, hoping he would notice her in some personal or human way. Maybe that very fact had made her professionally indispensable to him. Damn her stupidity, her naiveté, and her heart.

Finally, she tried to turn over but Sherlock's coat refused to cooperate. The contents of the right pocket wouldn't lay flat, and apparently, a sealed envelope bearing her name in John's handwriting and a small dark box were the reasons. Molly inched closer to the kitchen window until there was enough light to read by.

_Dear Molly,_

_I hope Sherlock hasn't royally screwed up again and upset you, but we both know that's not likely. Please try to be patient with him. As you know, he has no meaningful social skills outside of the uncanny knack of pissing everyone off and he has no ability to cope with his emotions except for denial. For what it's worth, I do honestly believe he is in love with you, Molly. I don't think he's ever been in love before now, or had anyone genuinely love him, even his family, so he doesn't have any experience to guide him with his attraction to you. He really has no idea what to say or how to say it, so he's probably mucked it up already. _

_You're not wrong for questioning his motives in trying to find you. You'd be insane not to, really. You should know that I talked to him in your office when we thought you were asleep in the lab. He told me he was in love with you and how he regretted denying it before. He went out to tell you but you had already gone. He's barely eaten or slept for weeks looking for you. He hasn't taken a case since his return, in spite of frequent offers from Lestrade and Mycroft. _

_In the off chance that he hasn't made a mess of everything, Mycroft has hinted on more than one occasion that Sherlock is a virgin. I don't know if this is true, as Sherlock would never talk about such things with me or anyone else, but I thought you should know of the possibility. And on that note, this envelope also contains blood tests results for you, Sherlock, and Moriarty, since you had his blood in that wound on your arm. They are all fine. I know it's not up to me, but try to take things slowly with him. _

_Yes, Sherlock knows about our time together. No, I didn't tell him, he figured it out on his own. He's jealous, or maybe envious, but strangely I think he approves. _

_Regardless of your decision about Sherlock, I will always be your friend. Call me anytime if you want to talk. I really mean that. _

_I know you love him. Now all you have to do is trust him to love you back._

_John_

Molly cried softly to herself, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her head on them. Apparently her body had found a new reservoir of tears to draw from. She pulled off the Belstaff and held it across her lap, fingering the material of the collar like she used to when he was gone. Like he was again. Gone. The coat had always been a surrogate for its owner, she knew, and one she'd never really felt worthy of. She'd never dared put it on herself. It was Sherlock who had put it around her both times, but she didn't deserve it, or his kindness, or whatever it was. Was it his way of giving her permission to… she didn't know. Her mind was blank except for the all-consuming pain and self-doubt. She held the small, cubical black box in her hand, even though she couldn't bring herself to open it. Unlike the letter, it wasn't hers. It was his. Like his coat. She had missed her chance. She hit him. He didn't like outbursts, she knew, especially from women. It made her weak. She could pretend she wasn't to other people, but he'd always know the truth. He could always see through her. Weak, stupid Molly.

She didn't know how long she stayed there and cried, unable to move from that spot, but finally her teeth stopped chattering and the shivering blissfully receded just as the moon rose over the tree line and the temperature dropped further. This time, however, the cold no longer comforted or protected her, it no longer focused her will to fight, it simply existed. It didn't judge her, or lie to her, or remember. She couldn't remember. There was something she should have done, already, something she always did before now. She'd missed something… Clouds finally blocked out all the stars and the only sound she could hear was the wind. Strange, she couldn't even feel it against her skin. She was so tired, so very sleepy. The darkness whispered to her through the trees, beckoned to her like a long-lost lover, just beyond her reach. All she could do was wait for it to come to her. It was too hard to move and she was too tired to fight anymore, and the smell of him was everywhere around her. Surrendering was effortless.


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter 30

The feel of warm air across her cheek was the first thing to pierce the blackness, then heat along her back. She was laying on something that was vibrating or moving, but somehow still soft. Maybe later she would think about it, but not now. She wanted to go back to the way things were before. Before what? She couldn't remember and it just didn't seem important. She found she couldn't move at all, but then again, she didn't really want to. The low humming noise in her left ear was soft and soothing, and somehow familiar.

She may have slept, she wasn't sure, but it was the pain that woke her. She was shaking violently and it felt like her entire body was coming awake after having fallen asleep, sharp stabbing pain alternating with an agonizing tingling sensation. And she was cold, so cold. It wasn't the welcoming, centering cold she'd become accustomed to, the one she could fight out of sheer will, but bone deep and deadly cold. She could feel the weight of several blankets pressing down all around her, the rough fabric scratching her skin, all the while suffocating her but doing nothing to warm her. The heat along her back burned over her supersensitive nerve endings, and she tried to move away. Her muscles responded, but not as she wanted. Something around her waist kept her still.

"Molly? Stop fighting me. You need to stay here with me. Do you understand?" She knew the voice, but he was gone. Wasn't he?

Hands flipped her over and held her wrists for a moment, before the heat pressed against her chest and stomach and she was turned onto her side, one arm pinned underneath her and the other between her body and something else that was warm and strong.

"Relax, Molly. Relax," he said to her softly. God, he smelled good, like sunshine on sand mixed with something darker and more masculine. She rubbed her cheek against the warmth that felt like bare skin and eventually, the shivering stopped and her pain receded, but her mind still drifted. None of this was real.

She wasn't sure how much time had passed, but she felt herself being pulled upwards. She was still cold and the warmth was gone, making her whimper. A hand held the back of her head steady but she kept her eyes closed. She was too tired to open them. "Drink this. It's tea with sugar. The glucose will help." It was steaming hot and incredibly sweet, but it made her feel better, so she finished the cup quickly. "Good. Now lay back down and rest." He helped her back under the covers and curled up against her again, only this time, she felt the back of his fingers brush back and forth against her cheek, slowly and carefully.

She snuggled closer against him, luxuriating in the feel of his bare skin against hers, and she sighed contentedly. "Sherlock?" Molly was surprised to find her voice working.

"I'm here, Molly. Tell me what you need." He kissed her hair.

"Don't let me wake from this dream. Not this time. I want to stay here forever." She could move her fingers now, and she used them to touch the bare skin of his side.

His low laugh coincided with him tightening his arms around her. "You think you're still dreaming, do you? Perhaps I will go on letting you think that forever." His lips brushed her forehead. "Do you remember what happened?"

"With what?"

"I found you outside, laying on the ground. Hypothermia with altered mental status. As you know, prompt and rapid rewarming is paramount and the nearest hospital is much too far to be of any real utility under the circumstances."

Molly's eyes flew open. She was naked and in her bed with Sherlock, who also seemed to be naked, at least as far as she could tell. They were both under a pile of blankets, their bodies pressed together from head to toe. Sherlock's hand lightly rubbed her back as he held her, completely unembarrassed at their state of undress or their proximity.

"Oh my God. What did you… did we..."

"Relax, Molly. I've done many terrible things, but I'm not a rapist. Skin-to-skin rewarming is the recommended method of treatment for hypothermia in the absence of warmed IV fluids or blood. Though I do find it strange that as a physician you do not seem to own a thermometer, a stethoscope, or a blood pressure cuff." He made no move to let her go, and he ignored her feeble attempts to disentangle herself. "It's okay. You're okay, Molly." He pulled her tighter and buried his face in her hair at the side of her neck, his concern spilling over into his voice. "Please don't ever do that again. I couldn't bear it if anything happened to you." He kissed the top of her head. "That's why I couldn't leave you to Moriarty like you asked, why I had to find you. I need you."

She gave in and just allowed him to hold her, and slowly she found herself holding him as well. Something loosened in her chest, and for the first time she dared to believe that Sherlock might really love her. She just couldn't understand why. All those years of his rejection, or at the very least, his cold indifference to her… how could all of that be unmade with just three little words?

"Stop it, Molly," Sherlock said softly as he kissed her cheek.

"Stop what?"

"I can hear you thinking, doubting."

Molly rubbed her cheek against his chest, feeling his steady beat of his heart.

"Why did you come back? After what I said to you?" She was afraid of the answer, but it was too important not to ask.

"I had to try again to convince you, and I'd forgotten to give you the letter from John. I see you've read it." He loosened his grasp, his fingertips tracing lazy lines across her upper arm.

"I'm sorry I didn't believe you, Sherlock." She finally had the courage to look into his eyes, but she was surprised to see the same vulnerable man she once held in the lab at St. Bart's. She suddenly became aware that all of the muscles in her body hurt, and she was still sleepy, but at least she was warm.

"No, it's quite alright. Our past interactions formed a consistent pattern from which to draw such conclusions. But we are not the same as we were before, are we."

"No, I suppose not," she said sleepily.

She felt his arms loosen and his body slide away from her as he sat up on the edge of the bed. He was careful to keep the edge of the blankets around her neck and avoid letting cooler air reach her as he exited. "I'll get you some more tea," his eyes remained focused on the wall in front of him as he stood. He'd been wearing underwear in bed with her, she noticed, and there was a new scar on his chest, still slightly pink, that hadn't been there where she'd examined him in the morgue, but he was just as beautiful as she remembered.

After he disappeared to the kitchen, Molly moved over into the spot where he had been. It was still warm from his body, she thought as she drifted off to sleep.

The tea was cold by the time she awoke. Sherlock sat in the corner of the room, fully dressed, his palms and fingers pressed together in front of his lips, his eyes closed. He'd made a fire in the small fireplace in her room, and the flickering light made him even more handsome, she thought. Molly knew he wasn't asleep; he was thinking. He could get lost for hours in his mind this way, completely oblivious to everything and everyone around him. The small black box she'd found in his coat pocket rested on the floor by his knee.

After a few minutes in the bathroom, Molly pulled on her navy bathrobe and sat down next to Sherlock, taking the box in her hand so she could sit close enough to touch him. She drank the cold, sweet tea, and rested her head on his shoulder and waited. It was one of those rare moments she could just be with him and be safe from the words he never meant to wield as a weapon against her. Three words might be enough to undo the damage.

"Did you open it?" He said, finally breaking the silence.

"The box?" She realized she'd been turning it over in her hands for some time. She stilled. "No."

"Why not? I would have."

"I know you would, but it's not mine to open and I didn't want to invade your privacy. I only opened the letter because it was addressed to me."

"You may keep the contents, or dispose of it as you see fit," he said, his voice was empty now, devoid of any emotion. "I will have no further use for it once I leave in a few hours." It wasn't the sunrise he was looking at out the one small window of the loft, it was the sunset. She'd been in bed all day. Naked. With Sherlock. Her Sherlock. He'd stayed with her, taken care of her. Before his fall off St. Bart's, he never would have done something like that, much less with such concern and gentleness. Then she remembered why he'd jumped. Maybe somewhere in there, Sherlock did have a heart, and he cared deeply for those few lucky enough to get close to him. He'd been willing to die for them, maybe even for her.

Molly opened the box. Inside was an ornate black gold ring set with a single, deep red ruby and smaller rubies along the band. It was one of the most unusual and yet incredibly elegant pieces of jewelry she had ever seen. Its style was similar to an engagement ring, but those usually have a diamond as the central stone. She didn't dare touch it. It was too beautiful.

He watched her quietly, but gave nothing away in his expression. "I tried giving you a fistful of diamonds once, but you gave them all back. I had hoped you might like this better." Something about the way he said it made it clear it wasn't just a friendly gift. She felt hot tears well up in her eyes.

Sherlock touched her cheek gently, and she looked up into those intensely blue eyes. They were gentler than she'd ever seen them. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Don't cry, Molly. We're both survivors. We are used to being alone. We'll be okay."

In that moment, nothing else mattered, not the past, not the likelihood she'd go to prison for helping him fake his death if she went back to England, and not the insanity of trying to have an actual romantic relationship with a self-professed sociopath. She sat up straighter and pressed her lips against his, then deepened the kiss when he didn't protest. Even after everything, a part of her still expected him to push her away with some hurtful remark about her inadequacies.

But a heartbeat later, Sherlock's lips parted and he returned her kiss, pulling her into his lap and up against his chest as his tongue darted out to taste her. The low moan emanating from his chest made Molly smile, and she threaded her fingers through his curls to keep him in place. She had wanted to run her fingers through his hair from the first day she met him. It was softer than she'd imagined, she thought, as she pulled his head down to hers more firmly, both encouraging him and reassuring him. He left hand curled around her waist, but the other palm moved to the side of her neck, his thumb stroking the skin just in front of her ear. With that simplest of touches, the last barrier she'd so carefully constructed around her heart crumbled.

"Don't leave, Sherlock. I don't want to be alone anymore. Please," she begged him, resting her forehead against his, her eyes closed. "Please. I love you." She kissed him again with short, desperate presses of her lips, begging him to reciprocate.

He responded with an intensity that frightened him, plunging his tongue into her mouth, trying to taste all of her. She was so soft and willing in his arms, filling the long-standing void in his heart. He finally broke the kiss, and stared at her with a contemplative expression. He was memorizing every detail from the moment, as he wanted to revisit it many times in his mind palace. Her eyes were puffy and slightly reddened, but her pupils were dilated, her pulse racing. She was absolutely perfect, and she wanted _him._ No one had ever wanted him for who he really was. They'd wanted to use him for his skills, his mind, what he could do for them, but Molly wanted all of him. And she could forgive.

He wiped the tears from her cheeks. "Molly," he said in that low, sexy voice that she had never been able to resist. "I know I often say the wrong thing and upset you, and it will certainly happen again in spite of my efforts, but do not ever forget that I love you and I would do anything for you. I will try to be a better man but I need your help. I don't know what to do. John was quite right about all of that in his letter. I just know that I want to be with you for as long as you will have me."

"Yes," she nodded, then kissed him briefly. She pressed the box with the ring into his hand, but he looked at her, confused. "Oh, God." She started to pull away from him. "I think I misunderstood…"

He didn't let her go, and she was surprised how easy it was for him to restrain her. "You're supposed to wear the ring. Isn't that how an engagement works? It's a visible symbol that you are no longer sexually available to any other potential partners, is it not?" It was Molly's turn to look confused. "John said, 'if she says yes, Sherlock, give her the ring and just like that you're engaged.'"

She leaned her head on his shoulder and slid her arms behind his back. She could feel Sherlock running through the possibilities in his mind of what went wrong but he said nothing. "Do you have it yet?" She whispered into his ear before nipping at his earlobe.

"John said I should get down on one knee, but that seemed inappropriate as we were both already on the floor. Should I do that now?"

Molly teased him by kissing up and down the side of his neck, drawing little moans of pleasure from him, loving how easily she could now affect him. Finally, she whispered in his ear, "You are supposed to put the ring on my finger, Sherlock."

"Ah, I see. Then allow me." He took the box from her hand, removed the ring and tossed the empty box aside. It fit perfectly.

"Thank you. Thank you for finding me, and coming back, and saving my life, and…" She looked down at the ring as it sat on her finger, the firelight reflected in the deep red of the stone. "And for loving me."

"Better late than never?" Sherlock lifted her chin and kissed her.

"Definitely." She leaned in to kiss him again, but he pulled away with a playful smile.

"Excellent, now that we have all of that settled, let's get you something to eat. We have a plane to catch." He stood up and enthusiastically pulled her with him.

"I can't go back to London." Molly stopped halfway down the stairs.

He turned back to her with a boyish grin that made him look ten years younger. "Of course you can. I love you, you love me. The rest is just logistics."


	31. Chapter 31

Chapter 31

At Sherlock's insistence, Molly sat down at the table with another cup of tea while he cooked. He'd managed to find some chicken and vegetables, which he made into a delicious chicken stew in record time.

"I had no idea you could cook, Sherlock," she said, working on her second serving. She smiled as she watched him eat. It was the first time she'd ever seen him sit down to a meal. "I'm also surprised to see you ingesting anything but coffee."

"I don't eat when I'm on a case, but I'm not on a case currently. And contrary to popular belief, I am human."

She refilled her tea and let her robe gap open a little more in the front as she sat back down. She knew he wouldn't miss the change and his eyes lingered over the exposed skin. "I certainly hope so."

"Yes, well." He fidgeted slightly before refocusing his attention on eating.

"If I told you that I wanted us to stay here, in the States, instead of going back to England, would you stay?"

"Yes," he said without hesitation. "I could rebuild my career here, but given your rural location, it would mean more travel and therefore more time away from you, which I would not be happy about." His eyes roamed quickly over her small living space. "But you don't want to stay here." He flicked his eyes back to hers quickly, and with visible effort, he said nothing else.

"Go ahead, get it out of your system," she chided him, but she knew how he needed to say these things out loud.

"None of your furniture is yours, it all came with the house. You have a small suitcase packed and by the door, another in the back of your truck, covered over with a tarp indicating your acceptance of the need to leave at a moment's notice. You haven't added any personal touches, haven't bought anything new except a few hygiene items and clothes. The truck is a lease, not purchased. You don't have a telephone, land line or mobile, or a computer. Your employment contract is for a substitute teacher, short term only, and the permanent teacher is due back from maternity leave in several days. In short, you have no permanent ties here."

"I thought I might have to leave at a moment's notice if someone, or you, found me here. There's probably a warrant for my arrest for helping you fake your death, and probably another one to bring me in for questioning about how I killed Moriarty. If John said anything about the others in Moriarty's organization that I disposed of, it will be very difficult to avoid a trial. They'll take my medical license for helping you, but even if they don't, there's not a hospital in the UK that will hire me, much less Bart's. It will be hard to find a flat with no job, and…"

Sherlock set down his fork, pushed his empty plate away, and held both her hands in his. "It's all taken care of."

"What?"

"Did you really think I would let Lestrade, or anyone else, arrest you?"

"What did you do, Sherlock?"

"I told you, I took care of everything." He kissed her hand just above the ruby. "The ring suits you, by the way."

"Yes, it does, but you're not getting out of the question that easily."

He leaned back in his chair and smiled. "I can see that trick isn't going to work with you anymore."

"It might for getting other things that you want…." She smiled suggestively at him until he raised his eyebrows. "But not today. Now, you're going to tell me what you did, so I can decide if I can enter the country without having MI5, MI6, Scotland Yard, or the local police waiting for me."

"As you command." He led her over to the sofa facing the fireplace, and he threw another log onto the fire. He arranged the pillows to elevate his head and chest on the armrest, then he laid down on his back and pulled Molly with him, so she was flush against his front. "Comfortable?"

She snuggled into his chest. "Very."

"Good." He rubbed her back lightly. "So first, I set up a dummy website for a video game startup company, advertising their new game which allowed users to input their own photographs which would be used to create visages for characters in a medieval-style adventure game, thus explaining the billboards. Unfortunately, the company went bankrupt soon after, when it was revealed they were many months behind schedule and didn't have the permission to use the facial recognition software integral to their game."

"Clever," Molly said, enjoyed the feeling of being so close to the man she'd desired for years.

"You expected less? I'm hurt," he said mockingly, which made her smile. "Next, I took the liberty of submitting a letter from you to the hospital chief of staff requesting a leave of absence to care for your terminally ill spinster aunt in Northern Ireland. It was, of course, accepted, and as far as they know, you've been in Belfast the last two months, but you'll be returning imminently, since she finally succumbed to the pancreatic cancer that also took her mother. After the funeral, which was today, by the way, you'll be returning to work knowing that you did your best for her and she's in a better place now." Molly giggled at his mocking tone. Sherlock was never one for empathy with the dead, or the living for that matter. "However, I do believe that there is a budding new field which you may find to your liking. Consulting Pathologist has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

"You want me to work on cases with you?"

"You did for three and half years. And I must say, you did some very good work while I was away."

That was high praise from someone who thought nearly everyone in the world was an idiot. "Thank you. That means a lot."

"Though you missed the estranged father as the murderer in the Bentley case, and the coworker accused in the Lyndon theft lacked the shoulder abduction to…"

"You just gave me a very nice complement. Don't ruin it, Sherlock."

"Not good?"

"Not good."

"Ah. Noted. I'll brief Lestrade later then. But back to you. Upon my advice, Lestrade wisely decided that you knew nothing of my very clever plan to fake my death, and that you were unfortunately deceived by a combination of special effects makeup and your grief over my suicide. The only people that know what happened with Moriarty, other than the two of us, are John and Lestrade. I have no doubt that John will keep our secrets, and Lestrade and I worked out a cover story for Moriarty's death at the hands of one of his lieutenants, apparently over money. Mycroft's men took away the bodies, sanitized the area, and sealed up the tunnel. You were never mentioned in any official report. Lestrade saw most, but not all, of the video that day. He understands that it was self-defense, but I think he's just relieved that Moriarty and his followers are gone. His wife was getting antsy about your tryst."

Molly sighed. "Sherlock, I don't think poisoning Moriarty, then beating him, shooting him, and cutting out his heart once he was incapacitated exactly qualifies for self-defense."

"It did that day." He kissed the top of her head and held her tightly. When she finally relaxed again, he rubbed his fingertips up and down her back, marveling at how well her small body fit against his.

"And before you ask, yes, I know you weren't having sex with Lestrade. Not that he wasn't interested, of course."

"Sherlock!"

"I do request that you not have sex with John in the future. He is, after all, soon to be married, and I doubt his wife would approve. Well, not without her participation. Or is that something that you want?"

"No! And I'm not having this discussion with you anymore. I don't want anyone but you, Sherlock."

"Good. I'm glad that's settled. You can move back into Baker Street as soon as we arrive. You told John that you put your furniture in storage but since you actually donated it all to charity, we won't have to worry about where to put your things, at least until you buy new ones. This time, however, I'm going to have to insist that you sleep _in_ my bed, rather than on the floor next to it."

She looked up at him, at the intensity in his eyes, and she felt strangely flustered at the certainty there. "I'd like that very much."

The corner of Sherlock's mouth turned up in a smile. "You're blushing. Aren't I supposed to be the one blushing?"

Molly looked at their entwined hands and the ring. "Is it true, what John said?"

"About my virginity?"

"Yes. I mean, it's okay with me, either way."

"Good. Why don't you go take a shower and get dressed? The car will be here in less than an hour."

"What car? And you didn't answer my question."

"Mycroft gave me seventy-two hours with his plane. He'll be wanting it back soon. I'd rather not fly commercial and since you have no reason to stay here, and all the details have been handled for your return to London, I suggest we get going." He pulled her up to a standing position and kissed her before guiding her to the stairs with a smile. Giving him anything he wanted seemed a small price to pay for his happiness.


	32. Chapter 32

A/N: M-rated Sherlolly chapter. I was going for sweet with a little heat.

Chapter 32

London

John was waiting for them at Baker Street. He embraced Molly warmly while glancing over at Sherlock, who surprisingly seemed happy. "Molly, it's good to see you. I'm so glad you're okay."

"It's good to see you too," she hugged him back. "I'm sorry for all the worry I caused."

Leaning in to whisper in her ear. "He really loves you, Molly."

She smiled at Sherlock over John's shoulder. "I know." She pulled back and looked at John. "Are you okay with this?" She asked him quietly.

"Yes. I've always known how you felt about him, and I know why you didn't tell me he was alive." His genuine smile lightened Molly's guilt.

"Thank you, John. I mean it."

She kissed John on the cheek as Sherlock cleared his throat impatiently. "Alright, alright, that's enough with the kissing and hugging of my future wife." He waved his hand dismissively in front of him, making John and Molly laugh. John stepped away and Sherlock put his arm around her waist possessively.

John motioned over his shoulder towards the kitchen. "Mrs. Hudson left some food for you. I have to meet Mary, but I just wanted to welcome you home, Molly." John headed towards the door. "And Sherlock…please remember what we discussed."

"How could I forget with all of your incessant nagging?"

Molly elbowed him in the ribs.

"Sorry," Sherlock said apologetically, with only a touch of annoyance. He was too busy staring at her lips while he circled slowly to her front.

John just shook his head and winked at Molly. As he closed the door, he called back, "Have fun you two! Condoms are on the nightstand."

Molly giggled at the thought of John having to take care of such mundane yet personal things for Sherlock, but she guessed he'd always been in charge of the day to day needs for the pair. Now that John had moved in with Mary, Molly realized she would have to take care of all of those little details of life for Sherlock. She found herself strangely looking forward to it.

"I thought he'd never leave," Sherlock said, throwing his coat onto a nearby chair. He pulled her up against him and captured her lower lip between his. Feeling her relax into his embrace, he deepened the kiss and slipped her jacket off her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. His fingertips lightly brushed over the sides of her neck, then her shoulders, then over the sides of her breasts as he watched the sensations play across her face. Sherlock was quite pleased to see her pupils dilate and her breathing become rapid and shallow. The smile he gave her was hungry and full of the certainty that he would soon have her. He pulled her shirt up and over her head while they both kicked off their shoes. "Now would be a good time to tell me to stop if you have any reservations," he said, running his thumbs across the soft skin of her waist as he pulled her flush against him.

"Mmmm… probably should. I need a shower." She disentangled herself from his grasp and sauntered off towards the bathroom, letting her jeans drop to the floor on the way. Sherlock stared at her, incredulous that she would deny him, but she paused at the bathroom door and crooked her finger at him, smiling. "Aren't you going to join me, Sherlock?"

He covered the distance in a few short strides. "You're teasing me," he nearly growled into her ear as he captured her hips in his hands and kissed her, his tongue delving into the depths of her mouth.

Once his lips moved to her neck, she said, "of course I am. The anticipation makes it better." She spun around and turned on the hot water, which exposed her back to Sherlock's touch. His agile fingertips traced long lines up and down her skin, then deftly popped the clasp of her bra, which fluttered to the floor. He pulled her back against his chest and inhaled the sweet smell of the skin between her neck and shoulder. Being significantly taller, he had an unparalleled view down the front of her body, including how her nipples tightened with the lightest of touches. Molly rested her head back against his shoulder, giving him full access to her breasts as she sighed and closed her eyes.

"I take back every unflattering comment I ever made about your body. I was wrong to ever say so. You are perfect."

"Thank you, Sherlock." His apology helped alleviate her lingering doubts. "Be glad I won't take back anything I ever thought about yours…"

After brushing the tips of his thumbs over her nipples several times, he was rewarded with a small moan. She raised her hands above her head, putting them around his neck as she pulled him down for a kiss, but she abruptly broke the contact when he began rolling her nipples between his thumbs and index fingers. "Oh, God, yes," she cried out as he pinched harder, watching every nuance of her body telling him how much she wanted more. Her hips rolled back against his already rock-hard cock, but she arched her back into his hands as she surrendered her body to him. He'd never dreamed that his shy, innocent Molly could have concealed such a deep and wanton lust for him, or that he could ever make her react this way.

Steam poured from the shower as his fingers dipped below the thin piece of lace that was the last impediment to having her completely naked before him. He was delighted to find her panties soaked and her core dripping wet. "Oh, Molly…" he said in that deep, low baritone that made her grind her pelvis against his hand in the hopes of more contact. He accommodated her for a few seconds before he pulled his hand back and stepped away from her. She stomped her foot in frustration as she turned around, but Sherlock had already reached around her to turn off the water.

"What are you…" He cut her off by picking her up and carrying her swiftly out of the bathroom and into his bedroom. He roughly pulled the sheets back before setting her down and carefully settling her head against the pillow, then he stood back and admired her there.

"Yes, you most definitely belong _in_ my bed, Mrs. Holmes." He crawled up her body with a predatory look in his eyes. "I look forward to _having_ you here many, many times in the very near future." He slipped her underwear down and off her legs, following them with his own.

"I hope so, but I think you've made me wait quite long enough, don't you?" Her hand closed around his length and she stroked him slowly from tip to base and back again. When he threw his head back and groaned, thrusting into her hand, she closed her lips around one of his nipples and sucked. She was rewarded with a few drops of precum which she brought to her lips.

Sherlock watched, fascinated, as she licked her thumb, obviously enjoying the taste. "You have no idea what you do to me, how much I want to be inside you." His hand found her wet folds and he watched her face as he slid first one finger, then a second inside of her. He began a slow rhythm that matched that of her hand on his cock, the heel of his hand against her clit, and once she began bucking her hips against his hand, he leaned down and captured a nipple with his mouth. He licked the peak before taking it fully into his mouth and sucking until she cried out and moved both hands to his head to hold him there.

"Please, Sherlock, I'm so close. Be inside me when I come." He looked at her questioningly, then at the box of condoms John had left for them, but Molly shook her head. "No need. We're good on the… ah…" He settled himself between her legs and kissed her deeply as he slowly slid into her, letting her feel every inch of him as he pushed into that tight, slick heat until he was completely buried within her.

Sherlock stilled, trying to control himself. He wanted this to last just a little bit longer for both of them. He took her hand and interlaced their fingers. When their eyes locked, Molly knew she was looking at the real man, the one behind all the walls, all the manipulations. "I love you," he whispered as he started moving, quickly building his pace as he gave himself to the overwhelming sensation. She was hot, and soft, and so desperate for him as he thrust himself into her.

"I love you too," she said, wrapping her legs around him and matching his movements. They kissed deeply, searching each other's mouths until Sherlock felt her inner walls clamping down around him, "Please don't stop," she begged him sweetly, pushing him over the edge as he shouted her name. She followed a second later, holding him fully inside of her as she came undone. He collapsed on top of her for a moment to catch his breath, then rolled them both so that she lay on top of him, his softening cock still inside her.

He wrapped his arms around her tightly, his voice shaky. "Please don't ever leave me again, Molly. Stay here and be my wife. Promise me you won't leave."

She knew at that moment just how hard it had been for him to trust, to expose himself to the possibility of pain and loss. She kissed him tenderly. "I promise, Sherlock, I promise."

The tension left his face, and he loosened his grip on her and closed his eyes, appreciating the feel of her in his arms. His sweet Molly.

"You're supposed to promise me the same thing, you know," she said, her fingertips playing across the muscles of his chest.

He held her face in his hands and brushed his lips across hers. "I will never leave you again. I promise. I am yours forever."

THE END

A/N: If anyone is interested, I wrote this story to Sara Bareilles' album "The Blessed Unrest". For those of you familiar with it, you may see the little references. For those of you not familiar with it, become familiar with it soon.


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